Catch 22
by The Sh33p
Summary: Every chapter brings twentytwo quick, random glimpses into the world of Naruto. Sometimes poignant, sometimes utterly insane...
1. Once

**Foreword:** ... The number of back theories I put into all of this would take longer than the story itself to bother explaining. Needless to say, everything is plotted out to some extent whether it's shown or not. Just enjoy it for what it is: A set of 22 random glimpses into the world of Naruto. I tried to make most of them at least partially fit with the manga canon, but a few really take license with the series and branch into little micro-AUs.

Hope you enjoy it all anyway.

* * *

**1**  
A little remembered fact is that, once upon a time, there were not Five Great Villages and dozens of lesser ones vying for power. There were not the Five Shadows; there were _six_. The Ho, Mizu, Kaze, Tsuchi and Rai Kage were all lines dating back hundreds of years, but they were lead in an almost democratic fashion by the Zenpan Kage. The Universal Shadow. For the longest time, this grand Kage held power over the lesser five, each one ruling his or her subordinates with a truly iron fist.

Then a pair of brothers, one named Kenzaimaru, the other named Namimaru, assassinated the Zenpan Kage and threw the once orderly world of the Shinobi into turmoil. In the ensuing power struggle, ancient traditions were lost, and the current Kage of the day were all either murdered by each other or by their would-be successors, most of whom were themselves murdered within minutes of their triumphs.

As a result, the Five Kage of today count their generations not from the hundreds of years ago when the Shodaime Zenpan Kage first solidified the Shadow Nation, but from when five leaders first cobbled together what would eventually become the Five Great Villages.  
**2**  
Konoha's history is markedly different from that of the other Big Five members. Where they were all formed from uniform Shinobi, each one bearing vaguely similar fighting styles and philosophies, Konoha was unusual from the beginning. Its Shodaime Hokage's specialty lay not in the fire for which his title was derived, but the wood used to fuel it. Its Nidaime had once been the potential successor to the Gojuusandaime Mizukage, his techniques specializing not in fire, but the water used to obliterate it.

Irony was never lost on their successor--studious of history as he was--that the two were brothers who conveniently became the first Kage in any village to give up their names and bear the titles instead.  
**3**  
Out of all five Hokage, only two have kept any parts of their birthnames. The Sandaime, Sarutobi, forsook his given name but maintained his family name. It bound him to his eldest son, his daughter-in-law and his only surviving relatives: His second son, Asuma, and his grandson and direct heir, Konohamaru. The Godaime did the exact opposite, but many would say she stopped believing in family the day she first laid eyes on her darling brother's mutilated corpse.

Out of all five Hokage, the Sandaime and Godaime are also the most sharply contrasted. Sarutobi took the title at the age of twelve--the youngest to ever bear the rank--and reigned over the Village for two terms; almost thirty years the first time, just twelve the second. He carried Konoha through two of the three Great Ninja Wars, and bore witness to both of his predecessors and both of his successors. Tsunade took the title at the age of fifty--the _oldest_ to ever bear the rank upon receiving it--and has since seen Konoha through the turmoil of rebuilding. She prays nightly that she won't see another war, and hopes to live long enough to have met not only both of her immediate predecessors, but at least one of her successors. 

At least one man, Danzou, doesn't think she's going to last five years. **  
4  
**When it comes to Bloodline Clans, Konoha is the only Hidden Village in the entire world to truly _embrace_ its mutant freaks. This stems from the fact that its Shodaime cut a deal with both the Hyuuga and Uchiha clans during Konoha's founding: The Uchiha were recognized as being truly independent and the Hyuuga were allowed to commence the barbaric practice of Curse Sealings. The first Hokage was the originator of the Cage Seal, and every year, when most of the Village celebrates his birthday, the entire Branch Family wears solid black funeral clothing, fast from dawn to dusk and spend the vast majority of the day glaring daggers at his face on the Hokage mountain.

It's the one ritual that the Main Family has never been able to break.  
**5**  
The Uchiha Clan was born when the second son of the Hyuuga Clan's Head became stone drunk and, in one night, impregnated seven women; a military policewoman, two civilians and four smitten Jounin who were particularly weak to a certain kind of Genjutsu that only he knew. When the Head learned of this, two of the four Jounin were forced to abort and the remaining women sought protection from the Hokage. Needless to say, he granted it.

A few decades later, the women's children started having children of their own. The policewoman's sons--triplets named Uchiha since they were bastards and that was their mother's family name--joined the military police. The Jounins' children became run-of-the-mill ninjas and the civilians' children became civilians. A few generations ticked by and the families intermarried and the Uchiha descendents used their Byakugan for purposes other than what it was meant for. Toss on a few more generations and the Byakugan finally mutated into the red pinwheel that is the Sharingan of today. 

At first, the Hyuuga responded by murdering the father of the seven bastards. Then as time went by, they began to ritually castrate or sterilize any second children, until the practice began to shrink their numbers and threaten their continued survival. When the Shodaime Hokage offered them the Cage Seal as an alternative, they took it without shame and they've been unflenchingly loyal ever since.  
**6**  
The first three Uchiha were named Tsukiyomi, Amaterasu and Susano. Each one specialized in a single field: Genjutsu, Ninjutsu, Taijutsu. An internal legend amongst the Clan tells that the three dots in the Sharingan originate from them. 

Uchiha Sasuke's mother, the parent he takes after the most, was a direct descendent of Susano. His father, the parent Itachi took after the most, was a direct descendent of Tsukiyomi. Although both brothers know a great deal of their clan's history, neither knows about this irony. Even if they did, neither would care.  
**7**  
The Akimichi Clan are actually the most noble in Konoha. They descend from a long line of Samurai and Daimyo. The Yamanakas were originally their gardeners and house spies, and the Naras were once their gamekeepers and medicine men. Time and the life of Shinobi have worn down the original bonds of servitude and replaced them with friendship, but every now and then, Ino will jealously demand to know why Chouji receives gifts from Daimyo he claims not to know, Chouji will wonder why foreigners expect Shikamaru to be profficient with a bow and arrow, and Shikamaru will wonder why both of them have to be such a pain in the ass sometimes.

Then he'll smile to himself, correctly assuming that no-one is looking at him, and go back to sleep. It's too troublesome to waste quality naptime musing over the oddities of friends.  
**8**  
The Inuzuka Clan of Konoha and the Nekoteinei Clan of Suna do not get along. The feud predates any of the modern Villages and nobody really remembers _why_ it's still ongoing, but it has something to do with one of Akamaru's distant ancestors confusing a giant black cat with a chew toy whilst an Inuzuka man and a Nekoteinei woman were trying be intimate on a kitchen table...  
**9**  
In terms of purity of style, Hyuuga Hinata actually _is_ better than Hyuuga Neji. The distinction is visible because proper Jyuuken is performed with the entire hand; it has an effect similar to microwaving someone's internal organs. The 64 and 128 Hands of Hakke, when performed by a proper Hyuuga, will kill anyone well in advance of the finishing blow. Neji's self-taught variations, for all their precision, merely damage the tenketsu and leave the target relatively alive until the final blow.

Ironically, Hyuuga Hanabi is better than both of them. **  
10**  
A little known fact is that the Yondaime Hokage was what's now referred to as a Metrosexual. He not only knew how to sew and stitch, he was _alarmingly_ good at it. He redesigned the ANBU uniform twice in six months, permanently solidifying the design and leaving it unchanged to this day. He also crafted the uniquely stylish trenchvest he wore upon becoming Hokage and spent most of his free time teaching others how to sew or repairing children's toys.

In spite of this fact, he was still one of the single most heterosexual men of his generation. One need only ask his eventual wife; they _met_ during a sewing class.  
**11**  
Uzumaki Naruto did not live his entire life alone. Contrary to his own beliefs, he actually _does_ have some semblance of an adopted family that predates his attachments to Team 7 and Umino Iruka.

His first few years were spent in the care of the ANBU. Every single one of them wore their masks around him at all times. Changing his diapers and singing him to sleep were Uzuki Yuugao's first assignments on the job. The song she sang to him was a melancholy tune of murder and hatred.

To this day, Naruto still finds himself compelled to want to hum the tune every time he sees someone in an ANBU mask. **  
12**  
The tradition of tying people to logs during Genin Tests dates back to the first generation of Konoha Shinobi. A Jounin named Namimaru began it by deliberately singling out a Genin named Sarutobi and pummeling him into the dirt during a test to snatch two bells. While none of his students actually succeeded, Sarutobi was the only one tied to the log. The experience humbled him beyond measure, and the speech Namimaru gave him afterward would eventually lead him to shed tears over the needless sacrifice of a pair of nameless Genin from the Sound, used as fodder in a Kinjutsu.

To date, Sarutobi is the only genius of a team to be tied to a log during a Bell Test. Of his own Genin, a loud-mouthed runt named Jiraiya ended up hitched to the log after almost--_almost_--succeeding at snatching the bells on his own. Of Jiraiya's Genin team, an even _louder_ runt with yellow hair ended up _tongue-tied_ to a log by a thirty foot tall bullfrog after miserably failing at snatching the bells on his own. Of the Yondaime's Genin Team, a more polite, yet still loud-as-hell, runt ended up tied to the log after trying to _help_ his teammates get the bells at his own expense.

The Fourth thought it would teach the other two to have a conscience and value their teammate as more than cannon fodder. He was wrong, but he still tried.

Hatake Kakashi's Genin are the most recent examples of the Bell Test, and they went little different from the ones before them. This time, the single _loudest little prick_ in Konoha's history ended up tied to the log and left there for two days before busting himself out.

It was only when Kakashi woke up at midnight to find all of his Icha Icha books burned, and Sasuke woke up the next morning to find his clothes bleached and dyed pink, that any of them regretted it. Naruto gained two black eyes and Sakura walked away from the whole mess unscathed.  
**13**  
Out of all the Hokage to take the Bell Test, only one has not been tied to the log: Tsunade. Ironically, every single one who _has_ been tied to the log either went on to become Hokage or had the distinct potential to become one someday.

Tsunade occasionally looks back on it and thinks that Jiraiya got lucky. Orochimaru went insane and only three of the people she's ever truly _loved_ haven't died horribly, while she's left carrying on with those burdens and the added weight of Hokage. Jiraiya turned down the job and became richer than a small nation from drawing and writing porn.  
**14**  
Aburame Shino is actually more attached to his comrades than any other Genin in Konoha. He looks upon the other members of the so-called Rookie Nine as if all of them were family, whether they know it or not. He keeps pictures of them all, he tries to be available when he thinks they might need help and even though none of them have ever taken his hints that he's _there for them_, he likes to think he's got a good bond with everyone.

When Naruto returns and doesn't recognize him, Shino is hurt simply because he thinks of Naruto as a cross between the annoying little brother he always _wanted_ to have and the potential suitor to the little sister he really _does_ have.  
**15**  
Out of all of Konoha's current Jounin Elites, Sarutobi Asuma is considered the strangest. Kakashi is the coolest, Kurenai the most beautiful and Gai the most... Well, _Gai_-ish, but Asuma is still the strangest.

This is because he is not the best at anything. He is less than Kakashi at Ninjutsu, weaker than Kurenai at Genjutsu and completely inferior to Gai in Taijutsu. Where he shines, however, is that he is a true generalist, and the best that Konoha has had to offer since the days when his father was known as the Professor. He is second best at everything, so when Kakashi outdoes him at Ninjutsu, he simply beats the crap out of him. When Kurenai charms him with Genjutsu, he overwhelms her with Ninjutsu and tries not to set her pretty little head on fire.

When it comes to Gai, Asuma simply threatens to make him relive an incident involving a rubber chicken, a pink man-thong and nipple clamps. Gai usually surrenders on the spot, and no-one really wants to know why.  
**16  
**Out of all of Konoha's Jounin-Genin groupings, Yuuhi Kurenai is the closest to her students. Unofficially, she has become Hyuuga Hinata's mother, Inuzuka Kiba's second big sister and Aburame Shino's favored aunt. Where Hatake Kakashi unwittingly allowed his team to fragment and shatter into a billion tiny pieces and Sarutobi Asuma's team was literally _born_ to work together, Kurenai has forged her team into the most flawless Genin trio that Konoha has. Shino is their brains, ears and knife, Kiba their nose, muscle and teeth, Hinata their eyes, conscience and self-preservation.

None of the three teachers of the Rookie Nine worry for their teams anymore. Kakashi has no soldiers to worry about, Asuma knows damn well that his brats can punch their way out of any mess they get themselves into and Kurenai knows even better that her _family_ is too smart to get themselves into anything they can't get out of in the first place.  
**17**  
The girls in Konoha have always been known for their lack of perceptiveness when it comes to what men like. In no case is this more evident than when it comes to their assessment of Uchiha Sasuke. All of them mistakenly believed that he likes girls with long hair. This lead to girls like Haruno Sakura and Yamanaka Ino growing their hair to absurd lengths for Shinobi while Hyuuga Hinata mistakenly took on the assumption that since Naruto and Sasuke were _exact opposites_, Naruto would like girls with short hair.

The irony is that the reverse is true: Sasuke prefers girls with short hair and Naruto prefers girls with long hair. Only Hyuuga Neji ever actually figures this out, and when he mentions it offhandedly while being made to listen to a conversation amongst the girls, _half_ of them stare at him as if he just made Hell freeze over and implode.

When Naruto returns two years later to find Sakura with short hair, Hinata with long and Ino with mid-length insanity that pretends its a ponytail and bangs, only TenTen is able to laugh about it. Why? 

Because she's already figured out that if you want a man to like you, you need to make him like you for more than your hair. Someday, she hopes her fellow kunoichi will figure that out. Until then, she's just going to enjoy it at their expense. It's a perk to being the communal big sister. **  
18**  
A little known fact is that Kankurou actually tried to ask TenTen out on a date when he first visited Konoha as a newly minted Jounin.

The fact that Temari had to blast Neji and Lee through the side of a building with her fan to keep them from killing him, however, is _very_ widely known.  
**19**  
Had Uchiha Obito survived, the world would be very different than it is today.

The Yondaime would still be dead. Naruto would still be hated by most of the village, but Hatake Kakashi would be the Godaime. Rin would have taught Shizune and Kabuto both the arts of medical ninjutsu, rather than Tsunade and the man that Kabuto lied to as his father for two decades. Umino Iruka would've had a co-conspirator throughout his childhood, and rather than stop at Chuunin, he would've hit Special Jounin by the age of twenty.

Mizuki would've died short of ever revealing to Naruto the truth about his demonic captive. He would've initially failed the Genin Test, but a roaring arguement between former friends and a subsequent fistfight that would've levelled a building would get him through anyway.

Obito would have taken in the newly formed Team Seven, and _Sakura_ would have ended up tied to the log. Naruto would give her his food and the team would pass in the blink of an eye. Sasuke would not be the only Uchiha left in Konoha, and Itachi would genuinely hesitate about returning to capture the Kyuubi. Orochimaru would never manage to lock in the Cursed Seal on Sasuke's neck, the Chidori would die with Kakashi in battle against an equally doomed Orochimaru and Rin, not Tsunade, would become Rokudaime.

Naruto would still meet Jiraiya on a fluke. Jiraiya would still take him in, and ultimately, Naruto would gain his trademarks all the same. Sasuke would learn to rely on his own power, and it would take him further than any mere shortcut ever could. Sakura would still lag behind, but an under-the-table deal with Jiraiya would still leave her under Tsunade's guidance. 

Mitarashi Anko would be half-normal, Yuuhi Kurenai would occasionally get giddy in Obito's presence and Hyuuga Hinata would be given so many peptalks by so many people that she would literally _drag_ Naruto kicking and screaming to their first date. 

Perhaps most differently of all though, there would one day be a boy with blond hair and milky white eyes--the son of a Hokage--demanding to have his 'bastard uncle' tell him about how the legendary Obito changed the world.

Not only would Sasuke tell him the whole story, he'd do it with wrinkles on his face. Every single one would come from smiling.  
**20**  
Neji and Lee recently came to an unspoken understanding. It came about when Neji noticed a strange 'handprint' on Lee's right shoulder, visible only when the Byakugan was activated. He only spoke of it because he noticed the same thing on Gai's shoulder a few days later. 

Nowadays, whenever Lee acts like a total idiot and allows his teeth to sparkle and chops his hair into that obscene bowl cut, Neji doesn't smirk at him. He laughs.

He laughs out of a wretched sense of sympathy, because Lee thinks that being funny can help him stay sane even when he has the Death God's hand forever gripped to his soul. **  
21**  
Anko hates Shizune. She hates her more than anyone should hate another member of their own Village, and if given the chance, she would gladly murder Shizune in cold blood, lick said blood off of her kunai and then throw the body into the street while chanting _'DING, DONG! THE BITCH IS DEAD!'_

In reality, the two have no prior enmity. What makes Anko hate her so deeply is nothing to do with a personal insult of any sort.

Anko hates Shizune for the same reason that she envied the Yondaime: Shizune was trained by one of the _other_ Sannin.

Although most people never stop to think about it, Anko was the one who tipped off the Sandaime to Orochimaru's activities. She stumbled into his house one night, soaked in blood and screaming incoherently, wracked with sobbing and unable to even see straight. Prior to that, she had been Orochimaru's most loyal student, not to mention the only one that was still alive. In three years of accepting Genin, Orochimaru had never failed a single team, but none of his Genin other than Anko had ever survived more than three missions. He always claimed to have disposed of the bodies, stating that it was just bad luck and he would do better next time.

Only Anko had ever noticed him smile when requesting to tell the families of the deceased personally.

The Yondaime, by comparison, got the best teacher of any Sannin. Anko has met Jiraiya. In a lot of ways, she still has a little girl's crush on him; he represents everything that Orochimaru _is not_. He is aging, but he does so like a fine wine. He is perverted, but at least he's open and unashamed of it. He is a master, and although he is arrogant, he doesn't flaunt it for his own sick amusement. His methods are harsh, but they work, and ultimately: He just plain _gives a damn_.

Shizune, however, still lucked out. Out of all the people trained by a member of the Sannin, she is one of the only two who isn't insane, maligned or damaged for it. Her teacher's talents, like the Yondaime and Jiraiya, _meshed_ with her own. Under Tsunade's care, Shizune matured into one of the finest medic-nins that Konoha has ever seen. She is pretty; a girl next door in a harsh and unforgiving world who somehow manages to maintain an upbeat smile and a goody two-shoes attitude.

She can live a normal life.

Anko cannot. She is pretty, but she is forever a bad girl and, according to rumors at least, a slut. She will die young and she knows it. Most people fear her or have yet to forgive her for being the only one of Orochimaru's Cursed Seal guinea pigs to survive experimentation. Her only close friend is a former social reject-turned-late bloomer, her only romantic prospects are all in her head and her only way to get any fun out of _anything_ is by watching it bleed.

Bleed and die.

Anko can't live a normal life. Shizune can.

So when Anko and Shizune pass each other by on the street, and Shizune gives her that _'My life is perfect! How are you?'_ smile of hers, it's really all Anko can do to keep from punching her pretty little face in.

They are a broken mirror image of each other, and the glass has a tendency to cut very, very deep. **  
22  
**One day, in a Chuunin Exam, Hyuuga Hanabi and Sarutobi Konohamaru are going to square off in the finals. Hanabi will nearly cripple him with half-variations of all the techniques she knows; like performing Kaiten with only one side of her body, or using thirty-two hands a _really freakin' mean kick_. Then Konohamaru will shock the entire Village--and his opponent--by calmly, methodically doing six things.

First, he will ask her out on a date. The shock will stop her dead in her tracks.

Then, he will take out a ceramic bottle of sake when she irately turns him down. He'll get her to lay off long enough so that he can get a good sip of his grandfather's brew; dull the senses since he doesn't want the humiliation of actually surrendering.

Then, when she runs in to finish him off, he'll use a one-handed Seal and what little chakra he has left to hurl an alcohol-fuelled fireball at her. Hanabi will block it with a full Kaiten, then Konohamaru will throw the half-empty bottle at her. She'll block it with a Jyuuken punch, shattering the entire thing and spraying herself with sake.

Then, Konohamaru will smile prickishly and point out that she's wearing a thin, _white_ shirt.

_Then_, the Blast Note he hid in the bottle will explode and leave Hanabi faceplanted into someone's empty seat up in the stands.

A few minutes after Shikamaru raises Konohamaru's hands in victory, Hanabi will stagger back down into the ring, _topless_, storm up to him and kick him between the legs so hard that bells will ring.

_Then_, she will calmly grab his collar, yank him up to eyelevel and viciously order him to wear something nice for their date.

Somewhere up in the stands, Naruto will laugh. Hinata will gawk. Neji will just look at his uncle and expectantly wait to be paid for winning a bet.

And Hiashi?

Hiashi's just going to cry like a grown man shouldn't. No-one will blame him.

* * *

**Author's Note:** WELL! o.o That was unusual for me. 22 random, pointless, ultra-short exercises in creativity; probably the only list-styled entry I'll ever put up.. Hope you enjoyed it!

And to give at least _some_ clarification on a few things: Kenzaimaru and Namimaru were the Sho and Nidai Hokage. Kenzai means hard wood, nami means wave. Lotta backstory there, but I ain't goin' into it. Trust me: The world is a better place if I don't.

Uzuki Yuugao is the ANBU girl who mourned for Hayate. And I know I messed up at least a few things with the mythological Susano(Susano-o or whatever), Amaterasu and Tsukiyomi. I don't care. It just made for a convenient set of names to use.

The Nekoteinei Clan is based off one short view of a guy standing next to a huge black cat in the last panel of chapter 279 of the manga. It basically means something like Polite Cat, the opposite of Inuzuka(which means something like Rude Dog). I think.

20 is a semi-direct sequel to Death's Precipice. Go read it.

Regards,  
The _Sh33p_


	2. Again

**Foreword:** ... Again? o.o I don't know how many chapter bits I'll be able to come up with on this, but I'll keep tossing 'em in whenever I have 22 to add to it, I guess. Same rules as the last one; I've got a bajillion theories and plotlines in each of these, and the world is considerably better off not having to read every single one of them. Enjoy them for what they are: Disconnected snapshots.

* * *

**1**  
Konoha's ninja clans share a long, varied history.

The Akimichi were originally formed from a combination of Samurai, Daimyo and sumo wrestlers. The Nara and Yamanaka were their servants; Nara were gamekeepers and medicine men, Yamanaka were gardeners and house spies. The Aburame come from a long line of entomologists and insect farmers, and the Inuzuka come from an even longer line of kennel owners. In fact, there are still dozens of Inuzuka kennels run across the world; Kiba has the largest extended family of any Konoha ninja.

The Bloodline Clans, once numbering five and now barely clinging to four, also share a long, equally varied history. The Uchiha were derived from the sons of a policewoman, and the Hyuuga were originally a bunch of con-artists, mystics and seers who developed the Byakugan through Kinjutsu and eugenics; it was a way to make their _lies_ into reality.

No-one is quite sure what gave rise to the nearly-extinct Akado, the Tsurugi were originally contortionists. Only its last surviving son, Tsurugi Yashagoro, still knows this.   
**2**  
Of all of Konoha's 'normal' shinobi clans, the Inuzuka are the closest to becoming a Bloodline. Every generation, their teeth become a bit sharper and their senses just a little more accute. Their ability to communicate with their dogs becomes better and their Ninjutsu more natural. When they do become a proper Bloodline though, they will differ from their contemporaries for one simple reason: They are more than a simple clan.

They are a _family_. They do not marry their kinsmen, they do not hate outsiders, they do not breed insane prodigies and traitors. They are _family_; brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, cousins, mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles. They support each other, they are loyal to each other and they are outwardly more emotional than either the frigid Uchiha or the arrogant Hyuuga, both of whom are or were in the midst of being eaten alive by internal conflict.

So, when Inuzuka Kiba's father doesn't come back from a mission one day, no-one so much as bats a dismissive eye at his tears.

They share in them.

And that one loss makes them all so much stronger because of it.  
**3**  
Once upon a time, the Legendary Sannin splintered in the middle of a mission. It happened in the heat of battle; Orochimaru attempted to perform a new Kinjutsu and ended up slaughtering half of the enemy on his own, throwing them into disarray and rendering himself unconscious. Tsunade became indisposed when her lover, Dan, was injured and in need of treatment. Jiraiya, however, was the one who snapped the most.

The enemy was a Thunder-nin named Sarashina. When the battle was all said and done, Gama Bunta's eye was forever scarred and his belly filled with a giant dragonfly. Sarashina lay on the ground, bleeding from more wounds than any human could survive. His right eye was gone, his arm with it and his back broken completely. Jiraiya stood over him in far better shape, but only because his arm and eye were in place and his spine was intact.

Whatever enmity the two had, it predated Jiraiya's relationship with the other Sannin. When it was all over though, and when he had the chance to kill Sarashina on the spot, he didn't.

Instead, he stared down at him, huffed out a small red cloud from his nostrils and turned away. He said something, but no-one was close enough to hear it. Then he walked over to where Tsunade was standing, Dan's bloody form leaned against her own and Orochimaru slung over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and gave her one of those rare looks. The ones that scare her, because they pierce more deeply through her layers of protection than anything ever should.

Then Dan coughed up blood, Jiraiya wordlessly grabbed Orochimaru and walked away.

Tsunade has never once told anyone of this story. She has also never told anyone about the record of a Samurai Clan being massacred on the edge of Konoha territory, nor has she told anyone that a man named Sarashina was suspected as being involved. Ever since then though, Tsunade has looked at Jiraiya and felt like she never really knew him at all. **  
4  
**Of the three new Genin teams in Konoha, one thing can be said of Ebisu's: Its resident Genius is frightening to all who can see past his glasses to the boy beneath.

Konohamaru is the team's generalist. In much the same way that his uncle, father and grandfather all specialized in nothing, he is a jack of all trades and a master of none. Moegi is the team's kunoichi, a girl who, like Ino and Sakura before her, is more obsessed with boys at this age than she is with techniques. Where Ino and Sakura were content with lusting for a simple tragic genius though, Moegi has her standards set _far_ higher: She wants the Kazekage, Gaara.

Then there is Udon.

The least noticed, most dangerous member of the team. Even at eleven, when he becomes a Genin a year younger than the previous Rookie Nine, he is already smarter than Ebisu. More to the point: He is driven and attentive, studious and bearing few scruples. He learns from those who came before him, and where Konohamaru is obsessed with equalling Naruto, and Moegi just wants to become a talented kunoichi to lure Gaara's attentions, Udon is busily studying his predecessors. He is especially attentive to the last Rookie Nine and their mentors.

From Naruto, he takes ingenuity and unpredictability. From Nara Shikamaru, he learns the value of planning ahead, but from Aburame Shino, he learns the value of planning _within_ plans with brutal swiftness and efficiency. From Uchiha Sasuke, he learns to depend only on himself, and from Akimichi Chouji, he learns the value of being able to allow others to depend on him. From Inuzuka Kiba, Udon learns that controlled savagery pays off, and from Yamanaka Ino, he comes to appreciate the kind of deception that most people pass off as airheadedness and a wild temper.

From their teachers, Udon takes more.

Kakashi gives him an appreciation for a cool head to accompany the genius he takes from Shikamaru and Shino, combining it with an obsessive need for variety. Kurenai gifts him with a love for Genjutsu, but Asuma inspires him to balance it with Taijutsu and a pair of razor-sharp steel knuckles.

He puts all of these to work in the Chuunin Exams. He aces the team through the written part, and when the Forest of Death splinters them, Udon singlehandedly kills two other teams and takes their scrolls. In the preliminaries, he declares himself to the world that unwittingly ignored him by besting an older Genin from the Stone. At first, he plays the game of losing battle with his opponent; allowing himself to be cornered, taking a few shots here and there...

Then he places his enemy in a Genjutsu. A basic one, to be specific; a starter for something more. While his foe is taken by this, Udon places him in a second, more complex Genjutsu. Then he uses his foe's distraction to plant a Blast Note between his shoulderblades. The first Genjutsu breaks and Udon allows his opponent to see him under a statue where the instructors once stood. The boy runs towards it, and Udon allows the second Genjutsu to drop out of sheer vindictiveness.

When the Blast Note goes off, the explosion topples the statue and kills his opponent instantly. Udon exits the ring to the loudest unspoken cries of horror he has ever heard, and a part of him likes it more than he would ever admit. 

Later though, in the tournament for the Exams, Udon comes to the realization that he has more to learn. This lesson is taught to him by a fellow Leaf, a Genin named Takeshi. He breaks free of Udon's Genjutsu, survives his brutality and powers through his Taijutsu, ending the fight in a bloody stalemate. Neither Genin drops, but Udon learns to have a fine appreciation for brute force and stubborn _egomaniacal_ determination.

After the Exams, when Tsunade hands him his Chuunin vest, Udon wears it with the knowledge that he is incomplete. He refuses to admit it, but he always will be.   
**5**  
The Sound bears an even more intricate, complicated and often perverse series of connections than the Leaf. Not all of these bonds are tangible, and many aren't even natural, but they exist. They do so in frightening number, and they're part of why Orochimaru has been able to keep his scattered forces in line for so long. Kinjutsu experimentation is the source for a lot of it. 

Jiroubou of the Stone, for instance, gained his chakra suction abilities from Akado Yoroi's blood. While he was not a natural member of the Clan, Yoroi adopted him anyway. Within a week, Jiroubou had combined the Akado techniques with his own family's sumo background, mastering them completely in much the same way that Hatake Kakashi mastered the Sharingan. Ironically, the very sumo background that spawned him also connected Jiroubou to the boy who eventually killed him: Akimichi Chouji's ancestral grandfather was the younger brother to Jiroubou's own.

Orochimaru himself bears connections within connections to his many subordinates. By blood, he has been twice related to Tsurugi Misumi. Once, in his original body, he was Misumi's uncle. Then, in his second body, he was Misumi's sister. That he spent the better part of half a decade having to Henge into his own natural gender never bothered Orochimaru at all. In a lot of ways, he relished it. Transcending gender made him feel like he was one step closer to transcending death.

Of course, if you ask most people, the only thing Orochimaru ever transcended was his sanity. **  
6  
**There are three legendary groups of swordsmen in the world of the Shinobi: The Nine Blades of Wind, the Seven Swordsmen of Mist and the Three Sabers of Stone. 

There is only one Kusanagi though, and as Orochimaru thinks of binding shadows in the dark, he finds that he rather prefers it that way.  
**7**  
After two and a half years away, Uzumaki Naruto returns to the Hidden Leaf to find that he has, inexplicably, become popular with the ladies. The four kunoichi of the Rookie Nine and Gai's team--Hinata, Sakura, Ino and TenTen--adopt him into their group. Over the next few months, between battles for his life, Naruto becomes privy to anything and everything.

When they hold sleepovers, he is the only male present. When they go shopping, he gets dragged along to provide advice on what looks attractive. When they need advice about boys, they go to him, because he _is_ a boy, and he _does_ like girls, but he isn't a pig, so that somehow makes him one of them. Along the way, he becomes their spy in the male community, but more than that: He learns things. He sees every single one of them nude and in lingerie, sleeps in the same bed as three out of four of them and somehow manages to avoid being beaten over the head for any of it.

He is a source of pure honesty. He gives his advice without criticism, but he gives his criticism without spite. He gives them all tips on how to look better, what men look for and what they really want. He helps them bond, and in doing so, he becomes something far more than a friend and far different from a lover.

At first, the other male ninja are in awe. Then they are curious. Then, finally, there is jealousy. One day, Kiba storms up to him with several others at his back. Naruto is at the Ichiraku, left flank more or less swamped with four kunoichi. Kiba grabs him, yanks him out of his seat and demands to know: "How in the _HELL_ do you do that?" All the while, he has a finger pointed at the girls.

Naruto greets his question with a blank look. For a few seconds, he stays quiet, completely unphased in a situation where most guys would tremble like frightened animals. The eyes of four women trained in killing are locked to him, as are the eyes of at least as many men with the same murderous talents. He remains calm though, and eventually, gives his answer: "My favorite meat is pork, I've seen cherry-blossoms bloom and I've felt the sun's warmth. It's true what they say: A little heaven can be found here and there."

To a chorus of blank, questioning expressions, Naruto pries Kiba's fingers off and sits back down to continue eating his ramen.

The guys don't get it, and they rather dislike him for it. The girls _do_ get it, and they love him all the more for it.

Naruto though? 

Naruto gets that what he just said is actually perverted as all Hell. On the inside, he's smiling because of it.  
**8**  
Of all of Konoha's former Genin Teams tracing the lineage from Namimaru to Kakashi, there are certain constants that no-one has ever really noticed. It can only be seen in battle, and while the rules say that all ninja must see underneath the underneath, no-one says anything about looking _next_ to it. It's one of those minor details that no-one notices unless they're watching from the sidelines, and even then, it's a realization that's quickly, quietly forgotten, just like the Shinobi themselves.

The constants are solid, and no matter how much each team unwittingly tries to avoid them, they are inescapable.

The genius battles with his mind, whether he is truly brilliant or just possessed of uncommonly common sense. The kunoichi battles with her soul, whether she is merciful, vengeful or just doing her job. The hard worker battles with his heart, whether it is tainted black or as pure as the falling snow.

Uchiha Sasuke likes to think that he thrives in battle, but he doesn't. Although no-one seems to _realize it_, he spends too much time thinking. This is why he knew to fear Orochimaru, why he telegraphed the Chidori to Itachi and why he eventually went mad enough to abandon his comrades in search of power. Even in a fight, where life and death are determined by split seconds, he _thinks_ through his every step.

Haruno Sakura likes to think that she doesn't belong in battle, but she does and she knows it. That's why, when she strikes the ground and forces Kakashi out of hiding, she's biting back a smile that would put the fear of God into an athiest. Her spirit, seemingly unbreakable, is the greatest source of strength she has. Chiyo learned this firsthand, and because of it, she died with a smile all her own, hoping that one day, Sakura's spirit wouldn't have to be sacrificed to bring another victim of ignorant ruthlessness back to life.

Uzumaki Naruto _lives_ in battle. Every single day is a new fight for him; be it a fight for life, pride, sanity, right or wrong. Where Sasuke mistakenly believes he belongs in battle and Sakura is in an odd state of partial denial, Naruto lives, breathes, eats and sleeps combat. It is the only place where he can truly lift the fox mask and show his face to those he confronts; he transforms from the prankster idiot to a magnificent warrior before the eyes of anyone watching. Few would admit it, but when he is stained in blood, surrounded by enemy Shinobi and smiling like the very demon locked away in his stomach, Naruto is more beautiful than any weapon should be.

Everyone who has seen him fight knows this. Even so, only a select few of them have ever taken the knowledge to heart. Of them, Iruka was first, Sasuke the least willing, Sakura the loudest, Hinata the most sincere and Neji the most frightened.  
**9**  
Out of all the Rookie Nine, the one that Neji fears the most is not Naruto or Sasuke. It is Aburame Shino.

Shino is like the older brother that Hinata never had but always needed; loyal and protective, unnervingly brilliant and quietly vengeful.

The proof of this is that during the month leading up to the Chuunin Exams' finals, Shino routinely slipped bugs through the Hyuuga estate. The only time Neji ever noticed the bugs was when Shino _wanted_ him to, and even then, he was always sure that there were a hundred more hiding just out of his sight. To this day, Neji sleeps lightly. He does so because he knows that Shino can and will kill him in his sleep if anything ever happens to Hinata.  
**10  
**Three days before his departure, Naruto and the other remaining members of the Rookie Nine held an impromptu eating contest.

When all was said and done, Ino cried, Chouji broke his seat, Shikamaru was throwing up from food poisoning, Shino looked a sickly shade of green, Kiba passed out, Hinata was hallucinating and Naruto screamed obscenities for five hours straight.

Sakura has since given up the idea of cooking and gotten used to the joys of take-out.  
**11**  
Uzuki Yuugao changed her name a few days after the Kyuubi's sealing.

It was originally Uzumaki.

Naruto does not know this, and he probably never will.  
**12**  
Yuuhi Kurenai was originally a social reject of similar standing to both Hyuuga Hinata and Haruno Sakura. Where the latter found a friend who elevated her, and the former had wealth and prestige to keep people from bullying her, Kurenai had neither.

Not at first, anyway.

She excelled at all the girly things that kunoichi should, learning the art of flowers, the fashions of every foreign nation in existence, customs that she didn't even understand and laws that she didn't even want to understand. Unfortunately, her bookworming and the blood red eyes that were her namesake--eyes not blessed with a Bloodline, like the Uchiha--left her with no friends. Eventually, Kurenai began practicing Genjutsu to try and hypnotize herself a friend.

It didn't quite work. The boy, Hatake Kakashi, gave her a black eye for her efforts. His teammate, however, gave _Kakashi_ a black eye in response. Then he helped Kurenai up, walked her to a medic and then walked her home.

Uchiha Obito was Kurenai's first friend. She didn't have to hypnotize him into it. Because of this, she honestly believed him when he said he was late because he had to get cats out of trees, or help old ladies cross the street. She believed it because he was telling the truth.

Then one day, when Kakashi returns from a mission without a teammate, bearing a Sharingan that isn't his and a new perspective forged in blood, only Kurenai finds any sort of amusement in it. It's bittersweet, because his new eye is in the same place that Obito blackened in her defense. 

Following this, Kurenai makes a genuine attempt to reach out to him. Kakashi has been her friend ever since.  
**13**  
Out of all of Konoha's legendary ninjas--the Sannin, the Sandaime, the White Fang and others--only Jiraiya has aged well.

Ironically, he is also the reason why most of the others have _not_ aged well. He is the one who drove frown lines into Homura and Kaoru's faces. He is the one who helped Sakumo realize that friends are more important than sacrifice, which lead to his death. He is the one who made Orochimaru fear death, and he is the one who made Tsunade fear time. He even quickened Sarutobi's aging.

He did the latter three with just one sentence: _"Ain't apeface startin' to look old?"_

It was a casual mention; a joke spoken over ramen after a mention. Because of it, Sarutobi actually realized that, yes, he _was_ getting old and there was nothing he could do about it. Tsunade realized that her little girl's dream of _marrying_ the Sandaime--because he was the best and compared to him, _all_ men were inferior--was impossible because he would be too old when she finally came of age. Orochimaru realized that he too would die, be it of old age or a death in the field caused by its rigors.

Because of this, Tsunade developed her false youth technique. Orochimaru created his soul transfer. Sarutobi withered. 

Years later, when Jiraiya meets them all again on the field of battle, Sarutobi is already dead and burned. Orochimaru's arms are crippled and his body is starting to degenerate. Tsunade's ageless mask of beauty eventually crumbles, giving way to a wrinkled husk that he can only barely recognize.

Of them all, only Jiraiya has aged with any grace and dignity. When he points this out to Tsunade, hoping that it would distract her from their inability to kill Orochimaru and win the battle, she just gives him one of those scathing looks that _burns_ in his chest. Then, with a wrinkled, spiteful little smile, she speaks.

"You win, asshole. Don't rub it in." **  
14  
**Following the ascension of the Godaime Hokage and Kazekage, Konoha and Suna's relations improve drastically. So well, in fact, that intervillage dating not only becomes plausible, but commonplace.

The first of these relationships is, contrary to popular belief, _not_ Shikamaru and Temari--both of whom refuse to admit to any sort of relationship whatsoever. Rather, it is Kankurou and TenTen. As puppeteering and weapons manipulation are close to one another, the two of them hit it off with only a few conversations. By the end of the first three months of their relationship, Temari has accepted TenTen, and Lee and Neji are no longer (actively) trying to kill Kankurou. In the end, it is TenTen who teaches Kankurou how to seal things into scrolls, and while his Village leaders show much interest in obtaining Konoha's method of scroll sealing, Kankurou repeatedly blocks them at every turn.

Eventually, when the relationship collapses due to a mutual lack of interest and the distances involved, Kankurou relents. In a way.

He learns how to perform sealings in the Suna style. Then he burns the ones he learned from TenTen, and presents the new ones to examiners so that they can be picked apart. When they find no differences whatsoever, Kankurou smiles and tells them that they aren't looking hard enough.  
**15**  
Among the ANBU's illegal Root organization, there exists a boy.

In the present day, he refers to himself as Sai. To date, he is the only individual ever born into the ANBU, and although he doesn't really care, he has always had a lifelong S-ranked mission.

If the Kyuubi's Jinchuuriki ever loses control, Sai is the one who is supposed to kill him. He is like a swordbreaker; a weapon designed to break other weapons into pieces. It is by this logic that he lives, and it is by this logic that he has turned his art into a means for killing his enemies.

However, Naruto is not a weapon. He can't be, simply because he looks more artistic than anything Sai has ever drawn in his life. A swordbreaker is of little use for trying to destroy artwork.

When Sai finally realizes this, he doesn't know why, but he thinks of tearing out Danzou's remaining eye and jamming a paint brush through the socket.  
**16**  
Konohamaru rarely speaks with his uncle. Though Asuma is technically his legal guardian now, their conversations rarely consist of more than short sets of questions and answers; what mission, why it's being taken, where it's going to lead him, when will he be back...

Never once have they asked if each other is okay. They share a house, but they don't share a home. Konohamaru is the scion of the Sarutobi family, one of the closest things Konoha has to nobility. Asuma is his own man. 

That is how they are, and that is how they will be...

But when Konohamaru passes his Genin tests, it is Asuma--not Iruka, not Ebisu, not Homura or Kaoru--who is first to congratulate him and present him with his forehead protector. **  
17  
**If you ask Tsunade, Shizune is the last member of her family. Her mother and father are dead, her uncles are deceased and she has no grandparents whatsoever.

This is a lie.

Shizune has disowned her only living relatives. This is the real reason Danzou despises Tsunade, and it is also why Shizune doesn't even know about her nephew. **  
18  
**A little known fact is that the Yondaime was inspired to create Rasengan from watching a pair of Hyuuga brothers beat the tar out of each other. At first, he merely wanted to copy their technique. Much to their chargrin, he succeeded with ease. Unfortunately, without the Byakugan to help guide and control all of that chakra, it had the odd tendency of blowing his clothes off.

So he adapted and formed the Rasengan instead. When he fought one of the brothers--Hizashi--in his first Chuunin Exam, he responded to the jab of 'pocket Kaiten rip-off' by blowing Hizashi into the stands as he was performing Kaiten.

Coincidentally, it was around this time that people actually started believing Jiraiya when he said that the yellow-haired brat was going to become Hokage whether they liked it or not.  
**19**  
The births of the Rookie Nine were all unusual in that eight of them were attended by the Yondaime. 

Sakura's mother had her water break as she was serving him ramen, Ino's mother had her own break when she was selling him flowers. Kiba's mother was treating his dog for rabies, Shino's parents had been discussing whether or not their clan's practice of signing contracts with the bugs at birth was legal. Shikamaru's parents had been selling him deer meat for his anniversary and Chouji's parents had been organizing an upcoming sumo event with him. All of these were accidents, and although he didn't _have_ to, the Yondaime stayed with each mother all through the birthing process.

Sasuke and Naruto were different.

With Sasuke, the Yondaime only saw his birth right as he finished leaving the womb. He had been on his way to see a doctor when an Uchiha named Itachi passively asked him to bless his soon-to-be-born brother. 

With Naruto, he arrived in time to personally cut the umbilical cord.

Of the Rookie Nine, only Hinata was born without the Yondaime present.

He was already dead. 

Ironically, Hinata was the only one born into ruin, on a snowy day in December. **  
20  
**Kiba is the first one among the Rookie Nine or Gai's Team to lose his virginity. He does so in a one-night stand with a girl from the Nekoteinei Clan.

Ironically, it happens on a kitchen table. Within two minutes, as they were pulling their pants up, Akamaru confused her cat for a chew toy. The two haven't spoken since.  
**21**  
Hyuuga Hinata's first kill is the most violent of anyone in her class, outdoing even Chouji's defeat of Jiroubou in terms of sheer maliciousness.

She doesn't know why she went so far over the edge, nor does she particularly care anymore. All she knows is that Kurenai's life was on the line, Shino was busy with two enemies and Kiba and Akamaru were nowhere in sight. So she isolated one of their enemies and began striking him. She doesn't know why, but somewhere in the middle of it all, she started seeing him as Naruto--he _was_ blond-haired, after all. Then something just _snapped_ inside her and the face she struck became Neji, then Hiashi, then Hanabi, then so many more, every single one of them changing from each blow she delivered.

By the time it was all said and done, her opponent was barely recognizeable as a human being. Kiba and Shino pulled her off of his corpse, and Kurenai later informed her that she had struck him at least three hundred times.

He was dead at less than half that.

Hinata still has nightmares about it to this day.   
**22**  
One day, Jiraiya 'rents' Naruto out to a less-than-well-off village in the middle of nowhere under the auspices of making some money by doing charity work.

The truth is that Jiraiya is a bored, bored, _bored sadist_ and he's having writer's block so he wants someone else to share in his suffering.

The villagers, however, have faith in the Shinobi. So they ask Naruto to do something--_anything_--in order to make their village into a tourist town that can compete with any other in the world. Naruto, being _Naruto_, accepts this challenge, swearing to them that he'll come up with the greatest attraction any of them will ever see in their lives.

That night, he's left alone in the desert, about a mile from the village. Left to his own devices, his doubts and his resolve, he begins to experiment. First he tries to create one of Jiraiya's underworld swamps, but gives up halfway when he realizes that a smelly deathpit isn't going to draw _anyone_. Then he decides to create Kage Bunshin.

He talks to them for a while, mulls things over and, when nothing seems to come, Naruto decides to experiment for _real_. He heads away from his Kage Bunshin, then guides them into circling around one individual. He has them start molding chakra _onto_ this individual, even as that particular Kage Bunshin is shunting it out at every possible angle. After a while, it begins to look like he's completely encased in a body-wide Rasengan, glowing as hot and yellow as the sun itself. Naruto is, eerily, reminded of Kaiten.

Then the clones lose control.

The resulting explosion gouges out a three mile wide, two mile deep crater that's shaped like a steep bowl. So similar to a bowl, in fact, that the bottom is completely covered with what looks like molten glass.

Naruto knows that the villagers will arrive soon, wondering what in the Hell just happened. Jiraiya will be with them, and Naruto _does not_ want to have to deal with an angry pornographer who can kill people with his _hair_.

So he improvises. He summons Gama Bunta and gets him to fill the crater with water, cooling the molten glass and leaving cracks in it that lead straight to the sand below. Along the way, Bunta's cannonballs split open the way to an actual underwater river running in from the ocean.

By the time the villagers and Jiraiya finally arrive, Gama Bunta is gone and Naruto is floating around in the newly formed lake. The next day, the village leaders announce plans to become a resort town; an oasis in the desert. In his honor, they name it the Great Naruto Lake.

Around the world, ninja take notice. There's a new Hokage coming, and he's already leaving his mark everywhere he goes.

* * *

**Author's Note:** The Akado and Tsurugi clans are the ones belonging to Kabuto's two teammates in the Chuunin Exams. Most people don't count them as Bloodlines; I do. The Shizune-related-to-Danzou thing was just a crack!idea. Likewise with Kiba losing his virginity, though I _do_ believe the Inuzuka to be on the verge of becoming a Bloodline Clan.

Everything else, you can figure out yourself.

Regards,  
The _Sh33p_


	3. We

**Foreword:** Oh look, another one! Same rules as before, etc etc.

* * *

**1**  
Sunagakure--the Village Hidden in the Sands--has a history that eerily parallels Konoha's. In a lot of way, the two are broken mirror images of each other. Their clans are proof enough of that, to say nothing of their Kage. 

The Ijoufu Clan was originally formed from a combination of soldiers, peasants and artisans. The Arankagiri were their masters and the Kouya their sworn rivals. The Chuugai came from a long line of pest control specialists, and the Nekoteinei came from circus performers with a habit of sticking their heads into the mouths of big, angry cats and a rather pressing need to be able to tell the cats to _not_ bite down. In fact, there are still dozens of small families of circus performers that claim Nekoteinei heritage; they are technically the largest clan in the Hidden Sand.

The Bloodline Clans, once numbering five, now virtually extinct due to the inherent prejuidices that the Sand shares with the Mist when it comes to such people, also share an eerie parallel history to their Konoha brethren. The Higan Clan were originally derived from burglars and would-be Robin Hoods with ears said to hear the human heartbeat from miles away. The Gekka Clan were originally a bunch of monks broken from their calling by the world around them. They are the ones who first created Tekken--the Iron Fist style now practiced, in some form or other, by ninja around the world--and although Rock Lee and Maito Gai will never know it, they hold the last vestiges of the original art as it was performed by the Clan's first head.

Everyone knows that the Sansai Clan were originally bodybuilders, but nobody remembers that the Dakatsu Clan were once poison specialists. That particular secret died with Chiyo and Sasori, the last people to dissect a Dakatsu member. **  
2  
**The only thing Jiraiya hates Dan for is that he died and left Tsunade to mourn for him.

Consequently, the only reason Naruto is angry at Sasuke is that he left and made Sakura cry. **  
3  
**Every single one of the Sound Six gave Orochimaru some sort of wound when he first found them, whether he liked it or not.

Jiroubou knocked out half of his teeth. Ukon and Sakon blackened his eye. Tayuya stabbed him in the hand and Kidoumaru shot an arrow through his shoulder. Kimimaro broke his nose. Although most would never admit it--and Orochimaru himself is among that number--the lesser five of his Six were actually _quite_ competent. Genius-level in fact. At certain things, anyway.

Jiroubou adapted to an Advanced Bloodline more skillfully than Kakashi. Ukon and Sakon were masters of sneak attacks and mindgames. Tayuya was the brightest Genjutsu expert that the Hidden Cloud had produced in decades. Kidoumaru was simply brilliant. Compared to them, the only reasons Kimimaro was more appealing to Orochimaru were simple: He was as beautiful as a woman without being one, slavishly devoted with no goals of his own to live on in Orochimaru's mind, and his Bloodline could've been refined with Kinjutsu to make him virtually indestructable...

And perhaps, with help from Kabuto and those like him, immortal as well.

To this day, Orochimaru still privately mourns Kimimaro. Not out of any sincere, heartfelt grief, but because compared to him, Uchiha Sasuke is nothing but a bucket full of problems with half the looks and none of the devotion. Kimimaro was Orochimaru's chance at true _perfection_. Sasuke is just a silver medal.  
**4**  
Of Yakushi Kabuto, one thing can be said with the utmost certainty: He likes to screw with people.  
**5**  
Although relations managed to cool off between the Yondaime Kazekage and Hokage enough that, by the time of the Hokage's death, the two were at peace, the two always differed on a few key aspects.

Where the Hokage treasured his family, the Kazekage saw tools. Where the Hokage gained his rank through courage and valor, the Kazekage became such through subterfuge and manipulation. Both men left weapons as their legacies, but where the Hokage sacrificed himself for his village and is remembered with reverence for it, the Kazekage was murdered by a foreigner and no-one mourns him because of it.  
**6**  
Eerily enough, the pattern of opposites for the Kazekage and Hokage holds true for their legacies as well.

Gaara grew up in splendor and wealth, his uncle there to provide care for him at all times. He had a brother and a sister. Until two years ago, both feared and hated him, though neither would admit it to his face. He killed his first man at six. Naruto grew up in abject poverty, only gaining any sort of parent when he made one out of Umino Iruka. He only has one brother--adopted and violently estranged--and no-one can say for certain how he views his other teammate. Until two years ago, both loathed his existence, and were more than happy to admit it to his face. He killed his first man at twelve.

Everyone knows that Gaara is the son of the Yondaime. No-one will admit whether or not Naruto claims the same heritage.  
**7**  
Haruno Sakura has, for the past two years, viewed Uzumaki Naruto as being her unofficial silver medal; her grand backup plan if Sasuke never comes back for whatever reason. She does not hold this view out of self-importance, nor does she hold it out of pity. She doesn't know _why_ she thinks this way, but after staring at herself in the mirror for twelve minutes one day, she stopped caring.

Coincidentally, that was the same day she cut her hair short and left it that way.  
**8  
**Konoha Tekken, as practiced by Lee and Gai, relies on strong legwork above all else. The hands can be completely _shattered_ and the practitioner can continue fighting with little real effect on the kind of damage they can do.

The reason for this is that its originator--the last member of the Gekka Clan, a refugee to Konoha--was a woman. Due to injuries brought on by life as a kunoichi, she could have no children of her own. She compensated for this by teaching dead last losers who had no hopes otherwise. This tradition, like her legwork and her style of dress, has carried through to every dedicated Tekken Ninja ever since. Prior to Tsunade, the legendary kunoichi that Konoha's little girls looked up to was named Aian Aika; she forsook her Gekka name upon becoming a refugee.

It is because Aika wore green spandex--and looked _good_ in it--that Lee and Gai do the same. Coincidentally, it is also because Aika wore spandex that TenTen tries not to mind that Lee and Gai do the same. She likes to think that they do it to honor Konoha's first great feminist for her glorious ideals.

... She gives them too much credit of course, but hey; can't win 'em all.  
**9  
**One night, on the bridge they used to meet on when they were actually _teammates_, Uzumaki Naruto and Haruno Sakura have a short, brutal heart-to-heart. The words exchanged are not screamed, nor are they insults and neither one of them cry when it's all said and done.

"Hokage is not a silver medal," Naruto tells her. "And I'm not your shattered prince."

He ends the conversation on that note. The last thing Sakura sees of him that night is his back, outlined in moonlight, shoulders sturdy and upright with the pure force of determination that has kept him alive up to now.  
**10  
**Akimichi Chouji gives the best gifts of any ninja in Konoha. He bested his father for the title for the simple reason that he makes no distinction among who he gives gifts to, and whether the gift is expensive or cheap, it is _always_ what someone wants or needs.

For Shino, he gets a new pair of sunglasses. For Kiba, cologne to mask the smell of dog. For Hinata, a three-sizes-too-big hooded sweatshirt to replace the old jacket she's grown out of, and for Kurenai, he gives a brush that can survive her hair.

For Sakura, he gives a pair of gloves to make sure she doesn't break a nail or bust a knuckle when she's fighting to the death. Since Sasuke is gone, Chouji simply gifts him by breaking into the Uchiha estate and tipping the old Team Seven photo upright, leaving a note to be read only when Sasuke finally returns here. It says simply, "Complete." For Kakashi, Chouji provides copies of the new Icha Icha books, to replace all the ones Naruto burned.

For Naruto, who never seems to get gifts from anyone, Chouji buys him a potted plant and, when he's gone, waters it as necessary for him. His father, Chouza, does not approve, but doesn't say anything to stop him either.

For Asuma, Chouji gets a new lighter. For Shikamaru, he gets earplugs--nice, discreet, hard-to-see _earplugs_.

For Ino, he simply buys her dinner and gives her the bluntest truth that any man has ever, or ever will give her: Diets don't make for attractiveness. Skimpy clothing and a good _figure_ do.

Coincidentally, Ino quits dieting and starts wearing a short skirt, fishnets and a skimpy top the next day.  
**11**  
The death knell for the Team Ten Jackets--the white or grey jackets worn by Hinata, Shino and Kiba--comes shortly after the failed mission to bring back Uchiha Sasuke. Akamaru shreds Kiba's and it falls to Kurenai to get a replacement for it. In the end, she selects a jacket not for who the boy _is_, but who he's going to be.

It's black and leather. Kurenai doesn't know--nor does she _want_ to know--but it is because of this jacket that Kiba catches the eye of a blond-haired Nekoteinei girl, eventually culminating in the one night stand where he loses his virginity.

Shino ditches his own jacket a few days later, instead grabbing a long, stylish coat that makes him feel more protected because of the many armored plates he can--and _does_--sew into it. Hinata is the one who gives him the hooded sweatshirt he wears over it, and although neither is the same as the old jacket, he doesn't mind the transition so much.

Hinata gets her hoody from Chouji. It's a birthday present from out of the blue; he simply walks into the Hyuuga compound with no warning whatsoever, tracks her down with the aid of her younger sister and gives it to her without even wrapping it. When she asks why, he shrugs and says that Neji told him about the Hyuuga ability to see through solid objects. Then he gives her a polite wave and lets himself out.

Later, when Kurenai sees her team reassembled for the first time, all of them Chuunin, she wonders whether or not they're still close enough to call each other family without the visual similarities that the jackets gave them.

Then Kiba randomly tackles Shino and tries to noogie him while Hinata does her best to jump out of the way, only to crash backwards into Akamaru, fall to the ground and end up with a face full of dog slobber.

It's at this moment that Kurenai realizes that her team no longer _needs_ the jackets. She sleeps a little easier at night because of it.  
**12**  
Maito Gai is the closest thing any of his students have to a father.

TenTen was raised by a single mother; a former kunoichi who retired due to becoming pregnant during a spy mission. She is the illegitimate heir to the throne of an entire country, but knows that she can never seek to claim this heritage because the country in question treats its women as little more than a man's property. This is why she wants to become a famous kunoichi on the same level as the legendary Tsunade.

Neji is an orphan. His father died to save his uncle, and the corpse is likely still being studied in the Hidden Cloud. His mother, an Uchiha, was forced into the Main family and died within minutes of her second daughter's birth.

When asked about his own family situation, Lee just has an odd way of smiling and changing the subject. Nobody has ever pressed him about it, because the smile he makes doesn't reach his eyes and they don't want to know what caused it.

So, in his own way, Gai has become their father. He scares TenTen's boyfriends--and when Gai wants to genuinely _frighten_ someone, he is alarmingly good at it--and gives her a source of male encouragement to reach for her dreams. He gives Neji an unbreakable source of optimism to counter the gloomy nature of the life he's had since he was four years old, and when the Hyuuga prodigy can't stand being at the family estate, Gai is the one he lives with for weeks on end.

To Lee, Gai is more than a stand-in. He _is_ a father. Their relationship is close enough that TenTen and Neji privately envy it at times.

So when Gai acts like an idiot, and when he intrudes upon their personal lives, weirds out the people who might otherwise be their friends and generally makes life _interesting_ in ways they didn't intend, none of his students fault him.

They love him for it.

And that is all the reward he needs.  
**13**  
Amusingly, the day Shikamaru offhandedly mentioned to Ino that Chouji could alter the size of _any_ part of his body at will was also the day she first found him attractive.  
**14  
**At least three times in her life, Tsunade _has_ kissed women. Every single one of them was Jiraiya's fault.

Once, while on a mission, she and Orochimaru had to imitate a married couple. Circumstances kicked in and it was Tsunade who became the man and Orochimaru who became the woman. They had to stay that way for the better part of sixteen hours while Jiraiya was sneaking into their target zone and planting Blast Slips. Tsunade won't admit it, but she enjoyed it. Orochimaru _will_ admit it, because he had the time of his (first) life with it.

The second time was during a drunk game of post-grief poker with Jiraiya, Orochimaru and about a dozen other ninjas of their day. Tsunade and another woman lost so much money that Jiraiya made them kiss to pay off the debt. Since she was going to have to do it anyway, Tsunade downed a half a bottle of sake, took the other woman by the back of the head and locked lips for three minutes straight.

When she was done, she honestly thought Jiraiya would die of a massive heartattack. Orochimaru, on the other hand, was completely unphased.

The third time, she just wanted a confidence fix. So she waited for Jiraiya to enter the room, grabbed a random female Jounin--Kurenai or Anko, she can't really remember which since it had been such a long day--and kissed them.

When it was all said and done, Jiraiya just regarded her with his head cocked to the side. The Jounin was completely red-faced and Tsunade was waiting impatiently.

Then Jiraiya just gave a shrug and said, in so many words, _"I've seen better."_

Tsunade hasn't felt more enraged at him since then, and she doesn't know why.  
**15**  
Of everyone in the world, there are only a select few who have never and will never look upon Orochimaru and be frightened or hindered by his ability to use killing intent as a weapon. The youngest of this lot is Uzumaki Naruto, and although Orochimaru will _never_ admit it, the boy scares him almost as much as death itself because of this.  
**16**  
When Itachi gets word of the Battle at the Valley of the End, where Sasuke and a Jinchuuriki beat the daylights out of each other, and where Sasuke emerged victorious, he is proud. With his limited set of emotions, it doesn't show on his face, but he is still proud.

Then he hears that Sasuke didn't _kill_ the Jinchuuriki. He doesn't understand it, but the resulting flood of emotions makes him want to put a fist through a wall and scream. At the same time, it makes him want to jump for joy. The Jinchuuriki--the demon he _wants_--is still attainable.

But his brother has now strayed from the path to true strength. He has gained _too much_ hatred, and it has blinded him to what he should've done.

Itachi won't admit to it when Kisame finally asks as they're eating lunch one day, but Sasuke is now out of his grasp. For the first time in almost seven years, Itachi feels worried.  
**17**  
In addition to being one of the best sewers of his generation, the Yondaime Hokage was also a masterful origami artist. So skillful and talented, in fact, that the Hidden Leaf's councilmembers still keep his works around as a momento. He initially took it up as a hobby to escape paperwork.

Coincidentally, every single piece still in existence used to be an unsigned document.  
**18**  
One day, Utatane Moegi makes it to the final round of the Chuunin Exams.

It's hot, and her opponent is another girl. A Hyuuga, no less. At first, they spend a little time walking in circles around each other; Moegi and Hanabi sizing one another up. Then, Moegi throws her first fireball of the battle.

Coincidentally, it's her _only_ fireball of the battle. Hanabi powers through with a moving half-Kaiten, makes it to point blank and disables her with one blow to the face. Moegi is left blind, unable to smell or taste and completely mute so that she can't even surrender. For a few minutes--what _feels_ like an eternity--Hanabi beats the living Hell out of her, until the world goes completely frigid.

She wakes up an hour later in the infirmary. Udon is at her bedside, having a staring contest with another Genin. He informs her that Konohamaru is fighting and if she wants to see, she's going to have to hurry up because his opponent is Hyuuga Hanabi.

Moegi makes it back right in time to watch her former opponent crash into the stands. Even bleeding internally, she manages to give a loud, brazen cheer for her teammate.

Then Hanabi gets up, angry, missing her shirt and somehow more beautiful than any girl who's just been _set on fire_ should be, and storms back down into the fighting ring. She tells Konohamaru something about a date.

It's at about this time that Moegi first believes in destiny: She can't beat Hanabi. She never will.  
**19**  
Every other saturday, Konoha's Jounin community--small as it is--holds a get-together downtown. The staging area is typically downtown, in the very steakhouse frequented by the InoShikaCho team. For these gatherings, the house essentially closes its doors to non-Jounin, putting most of the tables together in squares and rectangles until there is a maximum of space on the floor. Then they dim the lights and put on music; one CD's worth from each Jounin, randomly cycled through on a new jukebox that all of them pooled spending money on.

At the get-togethers, things happen. Not the kinds of things one might expect of amoral killing machines with legs, but the kinds of things you'd see at a regular get-together among friends. People get drunk, play cards and gamble away chumpchange, dance on the floor _and_ the ceiling, toast to fallen comrades and hold prayers to ensure that those still living would continue to do so.

The most frequent standouts in these get-togethers are Asuma and Kurenai, who first introduced the idea of dancing and dating at these things. It was all a random happening; Asuma lost a bet, Kurenai challenged him to pay it with a dance and somewhere between the floor, the ceiling, the walls and common sense, it was revealed that Asuma actually _can_ dance. Better than Kurenai, in fact. Ino taught him how to swing and how to ballroom dance.

After them, Anko is the most frequent center of attention. She is undefeated in dango eating, but Shiranui Genma managed to best her once at a drinking contest. His liver has been trying to murder him in his sleep ever since.

Relatively new to the get-togethers are Hatake Kakashi, Shizune and Hyuuga Neji. Kakashi joined up shortly after his team fell apart. No-one ever asked him aloud, but he casually explained it with something along the lines of: _"If I don't have some company, I'm gonna go insane and kill you all."_ Complete with that unnerving one-eyed smile of his. Since then, he's been hanging out with Ebisu at the end of one of the longer tables, legs kicked up next to a usually-emptied(and God only knows _how_) plate of something or other. To date, only Anko has actually seen him eating, and she's still googly-eyed like a lusty schoolgirl because of it.

Shizune joined the get-togethers shortly after Kakashi. To date, Raidou and Ebisu have gotten into fist fights over who gets to dance with her, Gai has bested her at throwing darts while blind and using only his _feet_, and Anko still refuses to give her the time of day. She fits in, but she's a wallflower and she tries to stay that way.

Neji is the most recent addition to these parties. He became a Jounin on the very day they were holding one, and his 'initiation,' as it were, became the happening of the night. Within the span of six hours, a grand total of thirty-two soy sauce-filled water balloons busted on his head, ten dango sticks--courtesy of Anko, mostly--somehow came within two inches of his crotch, every drink he had was laced with alcohol and at least four people used a Genjutsu to make him think he was naked in a room full of violent prison inmates.

It took the steakhouse owners two days to put the roof back on. Chouji still hasn't fully forgiven Asuma, and he probably never will.  
**20**  
Coincidentally, the day after Neji made Jounin was the day Rock Lee first defeated him. No-one is quite sure how the two started fighting or what they fought over. Neither will say, but according to TenTen, it involved a massive hangover, the wreak of soy sauce and the funny look Neji was giving to Lee everytime he mentioned an explosion of youth.

The fight itself, on the other hand, _is_ widely known. It involved lots of screaming, internal bleeding, Initial Lotus and a public toilet. While Neji continues to attend the semi-weekly Jounin get-togethers, he does it with his Byakugan activated and his eyes laced with killing intent for anyone bringing sake within two feet of him.

To date, only Kakashi, Anko and Ibiki have found it funny.  
**21**  
Uchiha Sasuke will never admit it, but every night, he dreams of home. Not of the Sound, not of the Uchiha, but _home_. A place where a stupid girl with pink hair declared undying love for him. A place where a blond dumbass was willing to throw his life away to prove that he _could_ scratch Sasuke's forehead. A place where a Bloodline thief he should have hated more than almost anything somehow became the closest thing he had to a father since the real one was murdered in cold blood.

When he dreams, all of them are there. Naruto and Sakura have grown; she isn't much taller, but she's filled out and looks more like the _woman_ she's going to become. Her hair is down to the backs of her knees though, and her skills as a shinobi are still subpar at best. Naruto, on the other hand, is still a runt with scruffy hair, clad in the exact same color jumpsuit as before and still too goodhearted to want to kill anyone. Kakashi though, is exactly the same.

When he wakes up though, Sasuke is left with a terrible feeling that everything is just plain _wrong_...  
**22**  
Eventually, when Team 7 reunites, Sasuke is able to put a finger on what felt wrong.

Naruto and Sakura _have_ grown. She isn't much taller, but she's filled out and looks more like the woman she's going to become, but she cuts her hair short now and has a gleam in her eyes that looks like she could take on the world and actually win this time. Naruto has gotten _bigger_; still scruffy haired but the jumpsuit is gone, replaced with a jacket and pants that are both darker in color and loaded with weapons that carry the faintest smell of human blood. He has killed, probably more times than Sasuke himself, and yet he still looks completely unweathered for it.

Kakashi though, is exactly the same...

Until Sasuke sees his Sharingan evolve in the heat of battle.

It's at that moment that Sasuke is genuinely able to _figure out_ what felt wrong: He never had to leave in the first place.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I'm probably running out of steam on this, huh? 

All the Sand Clans are random inventions I came up with based on the huge panel at the end of chapter 279 of the manga. Feel free to use and abuse them if you want. In addition to that, the reference to Neji's mother is also a reference to another story of mine: Red-Eyed Hyuuga. Go give it a read.

That's all. Either permanently or just for now. Hope you enjoyed!

Regards,  
The _Sh33p_


	4. Come

**1  
**Regardless of how he likes to privately slack off, Ebisu actually _is_ the single best teacher that Konoha currently has to offer. He made Chuunin on brains, Special Jounin on _more_ brains and true Jounin on prior brains combined with raw experience. Having spent the better part of his career lording over the grandchildren of Sarutobi and his former teammates, Homura and Koharu, Ebisu knows the rudiments of virtually every declassified technique in Konoha. Whether he can do them himself or not is another matter.

So when his three brats--the three _soldiers_ that they're rapidly turning into--show up at the Chuunin Exam boasting A-ranked jutsu, skills and knowledge, Ebisu is content to watch the other Jounin teachers, current and previous, eat crow like it's going out of style. Udon is the only one to make Chuunin, though he has to draw to do it, but Konohamaru advances to the semi-finals with ease and Moegi manages a near-S-ranked version of a former Uchiha fireball attack. While their success is mixed, his team is the only one to make it out of the preliminaries intact.

Later, when the three of them have their first _major_ mission alongside Neji's pack of freaks, it is Ebisu who binds the five Genin and one Chuunin into a cohesive fighting unit. Udon and Takeshi splinter in the heat of battle, but Ebisu saw that coming and prepared them for it; Udon kills eight men singlehandedly and Takeshi survives solo combat with one of the enemy's top subordinates. Konohamaru and Hanabi work together in one of the most awkward-yet-functional pairings that Ebisu has ever seen; he almost levels half the battlefield, she almost levels _him_ but somewhere in between her hands and his flames, the enemy falls. Saiten and Moegi compliment each other perfectly, and while both take injuries, they survive the battle intact.

And as for Ebisu and Neji?

Well, Neji kills a lot of people. But it's Ebisu who gets kissed by the Princess, so everything balances out and, once again, he gets to watch another hotshot Jounin eat crow.  
**2**  
One day, an opponent finally has the sense to ask Uzumaki Naruto a simple, straight-forward question: _"Why the hell are you doing this?"_

Naruto's response is equally simple and straight-forward: _"Because it's what I live for!"_

He has no idea how right he is.  
**3**  
In another lifetime, Orochimaru would've found none of them.

Kidoumaru would've assassinated Hyuuga Hiashi with an arrow to the spine and sparked a war. Jiroubou would've met Akimichi Chouza in battle and bested him outright, but Chouji would come seeking vengeance and there wouldn't be enough left afterward to identify Jiroubou's corpse as belonging to the Hidden Stone. Tayuya would become the Hidden Cloud's equivelent to Anko and Kurenai on mental steroids, and somewhere between killing thirty or more Leaf ninja with a single Genjutsu, she would've met and flirted with both Inuzuka Kiba and Aburame Shino before finding a little black bug on her wrist and hearing a pair of monstrous jaws slamming shut from behind her. 

Ukon and Sakon would've gone missing-nin; it would fall to Konohamaru and Udon to kill them on a mission. Ebisu would take near-mortal injuries and Moegi would die in the process, but Genjutsu and a particularly ugly fireball would return the pain a thousand fold.

Kimimaro would still die. Not from his disease, but because Uchiha Sasuke put a Chidori through his face.  
**4**  
A little known fact is that Tayuya actually _did_ survive her battle with Shikamaru and Temari. Unfortunately for her, medic-nins from Konoha found her before her injuries could do her in.

To date, Morino Ibiki has visited Tayuya thirty-two times and counting. She became homicidal on the third, suicidal on the eighth and went completely insane on the twenty-fourth. Yamanaka Ino has been using her for body-swap practice ever since.  
**5**  
When Enma, the great King of the Apes, first meets Sarutobi's grandson, he's not sure whether he should be disappointed or flat-out enraged. The boy has none of his grandfather's might, none of his spirit and even _less_ of his wisdom and skill. For the longest time, Enma simply amuses himself by playing headgames with the kid.

Then Konohamaru sets Enma's head on fire and storms off, raving about stupid monkeys and idiotic old men.

It's at this point that Enma decides that he really _does_ like Konohamaru.  
**6**  
Another little known fact is that the Sandaime Hokage's original name was Sarutobi Sasuke. Coincidentally, this is where Uchiha Sasuke got his name.  
**7**  
One of those irritating little ironies is that Naruto is the first kiss for all three of the Rookie Nine girls and two of the boys as well.

For Uchiha Sasuke, it's an accident. Naruto ends up brutalized by the academy's kunoichi for it, but when he looks back on the incident, he's _glad_ they beat the living Hell out of him. After an incident as traumatic as kissing _Sasuke_, the beating was like a walk in the park.

For Haruno Sakura, it's another random accident. Again, Naruto ends up completely brutalized for it, but when no-one is looked in the aftermath, both of them are smiling from ear to ear. If not for the fact that his face is tinting blue, Naruto would be blushing to the roots of his hair. Everyone confuses Sakura's own blush to be formed from pure rage, and she's honestly glad that they do for more reasons than she's ever going to admit.

For Yamanaka Ino, it is _not_ a random accident. Two days before Naruto is set to leave with Jiraiya, Ino ambushes him and tries to thank him on behalf of Sakura for trying to get Sasuke back. When he tries to brush her off, she gets frustrated, grabs his ears and ends up Frenching him. When it's over, he gives her a look so clueless that Ino spends thirteen minutes laughing at him. Then she kisses him again--on the cheek this time--and walks off.

For Hyuuga Hinata, it's somewhere between deliberate and accident and just plain _right_. After a battle, with both of them bloodied and hurting for more reasons than either cares to admit, they somehow end up side-by-side, waiting for medical treatment. An awkward conversation leads to handholding, handholding leads to quasi-cuddling, quasi-cuddling leads to liplocking and the first time that Sakura ever thinks that _Naruto_ is out of _her_ grasp is when she enters the medical tent in time to see them sucking face like seasoned veterans, half-naked on the floor.

For Inuzuka Kiba, it is not an accident. It is an _atrocity_. He and Naruto get involved in a war of pranks, and somewhere between water balloons, mayo bombs, rotten eggs, dog urine, supposedly lost limbs and a few too many loudly spoken cuss words, Naruto gets a very cruel idea. He sneaks a Kage Bunshin into Kiba's room, gets out a camera and performs Sexy no Jutsu. Kiba in turn wakes up to find a hot, naked, ethereal looking blonde giving him the eye and telling him--in a voice that sounds like Tsunade gone _horribly_ right--that _she wants it now_. A few seconds later, Kiba kisses said blonde.

Then the blonde becomes Sasuke, Kiba gets blinded by a flashbulb and Sasuke explodes in a puff of smoke. The last thing Kiba hears that night is a window shattering, Akamaru barking and a loud, irritatingly _mad_ cackle.

The next day, pictures of Sasuke and Kiba kissing are plastered across every single outdoor wall in Konoha. Needless to say, Kiba cedes defeat and spends the rest of the month trying to salvage what's left of his broken masculinity. Naruto escapes punishment for the simple reason that everyone is afraid of "being Kiba'd."

Coincidentally, no-one has tried to one-up Naruto as a prankster ever since.  
**8**  
To date, Aburame Shino has killed the most out of any former member of the Rookie Nine, Gai's team or even the Sand Siblings, though Gaara's run as a homicidal maniac kept him in the lead for a very _long_ time. The only reason Shino took the lead is because of a mission that involved exterminating an entire town and making it look like a divine plague; he and thirteen other Aburame took the job alone. They provided the bugs, but _Shino_ provided the control. To this day, he still remembers the screaming and the countless lights flickering out at night, followed by the somber walk he took through the town the next day.

Shino has since refused to cooperate with other Aburame in missions. The decision has alienated his once close relationship with his father, but it's also strengthened his bonds with Hinata, Kurenai and Kiba. At least he can look them in the eye and not want to scream.  
**9**  
In his lifetime, Uzumaki Naruto is somehow tied to no less than fifteen world famous landmarks. Four are named after him, five were made _by_ him and ten were made simply because he was somehow in the right place at the right time for someone to want to immortalize him.

The one that Naruto comes to treasure the most is, ironically, the only one that can't be accessed by tourists: His face on the Hokage Monument.   
**10**  
Once upon a time, Jiraiya wanted to become the Hokage.

It was a combination of Sarutobi, Tsunade and Orochimaru who killed that dream. Orochimaru vindictively cheered him on just to watch him fail, Tsunade made it a point of telling him he never had any chance and, when he finally got around to mentioning it to Sarutobi, the old man told him to quit while he was ahead because Orochimaru was already going to succeed him as the Yondaime. 

Eventually, by the time Jiraiya makes Jounin, he's become too jaded to really want the job anymore. So he picks a kid--a loud, irritatingly cute, blond-haired, blue-eyed, _rude-as-all-Hell pain in the ass_--and decides to make a Hokage out of him. That the boy actually _wants_ the job just makes it easier. For a few short years, Jiraiya trains the boy feverishly, and even when both of his other students die horribly, this kid thrives. The road is hard, his mind almost breaks a few times, but when it finally comes time for Sarutobi to select a successor, Jiraiya proudly watches Orochimaru's calm, placid expression _shatter_ into a million pieces when his student's name is announced.

A few weeks later, when Orochimaru has gone missing, his student's place is cemented, Tsunade is long gone and Sarutobi is officially retired, Jiraiya and the old man sit down for sake. Sarutobi says nothing the entire time, but he's the one buying drinks. When Jiraiya finally gets up to leave, Sarutobi actually _does_ speak. It's one of the shortest things he's ever said to Jiraiya, but it's also the first and only time the old ape ever admitted to being wrong.

_"You would've made a fine Hokage."_

Close to a decade and a half later, when Sarutobi's old teammates approach him for the job, Jiraiya _almost_ laughs in their faces. Instead, he decides to go for another measure of revenge and successfully pawns the job off on Tsunade.

The end result of all of this is that his teacher has died and will never know peace because of a jutsu that _Jiraiya_ invented, the woman who scorned him is now in a job with a 100 percent mortality rate and the _thing_ that was supposed to be Yondaime is completely insane.

It's a hollow victory, but it's a victory that Jiraiya can live with.  
**11**  
Another little known fact about Jiraiya is that he actually _is_ quite good at getting women, contrary to what his former teammates and students like to think. To date, he has fathered thirty-seven children by thirty-seven different women in thirty-seven different places across the world. He only has half as many grandchildren, but at least five of them are Shinobi spread across two Hidden Villages. 

The irony of this is that two of them, Kankurou and Kiba, actually treat each other like cousins without even knowing it.   
**12**  
Something that Tsunade doesn't know--and never _will_ know--is that Dan was actually able to see the future. The moment he met her, he knew he was going to die protecting her. The moment he met Jiraiya, he knew that he was stepping in between two people who he had no business seperating. The moment he met Orochimaru, he wanted to kill him in cold blood.

He couldn't change anything though. He was going to die protecting Tsunade, so he decided to love her and make it a sacrifice to be proud of. Jiraiya was going to hate him, so a small part of Dan's heart went black and decided to relish in it when no-one was looking. Orochimaru, no matter how Dan strengthened himself, was always going to be in a completely different league; Dan couldn't look him in the face without straining to keep from throwing up in fright.

Of all the people he met, the only one that Dan was unable to see the future for was the Yondaime. Dan couldn't see the boy becoming Chuunin, let alone Hokage. He couldn't see him having a future at all, in fact, but he could always _hear_ something around the youth who would one day reign supreme over the Hidden Village of Konoha: A voice. It didn't belong to the boy, it didn't belong to Jiraiya and as far as Dan could tell, it didn't belong to _anyone_ at all.

It was strong and defiant. Rude and irate. Confident but bleeding inside. Something about it filled Dan with more strength than he could comprehend. At the same time, it terrified him more than he could put into words. It was a voice he eventually took to echoing, and by the time he met Tsunade, its words had become his own.

_"I'm going to become Hokage," _he said. _"Because it's my dream."_  
**13**  
The world would be a far different place, had the Shadow Nation never been formed. Simply put: Shinobi would not exist. For the Rookie Nine and Gai's team alone, the changes would render them nearly unrecognizable beyond their appearance.

Aburame Shino would be a scientist. Inuzuka Kiba would work at a kennel, though he would have aspirations of becoming a bounty hunter. Akimichi Chouji would be a professional sumo wrestler, Yamanaka Ino would be his favored attendant and bodyguard, Nara Shikamaru his most trusted gamekeeper and medicine man. Haruno Sakura would be an underconfident flowershop owner and Uchiha Sasuke would be a well-balanced police officer with dreams of breaking the class system and becoming a samurai. Rock Lee would be a wandering monk-turned-drunkard and TenTen would be a runaway princess hiding out as a blacksmith's apprentice.

The Hyuugas would be a noble family headed by a Daimyo, and Uzumaki Naruto would be a ronin hellbent on taking over a country to gain his familial honor back. 

Every single one of them would still meet though. Just as in real life, Naruto would be the key to drawing them together.

He would meet Kiba and inspire him to take up the ideal of bounty hunting; the dog owner would join him in his quest in gratitude. He would kill a man forcing Shino to conduct experiments against his will and the scientist would pay the debt by acting as Naruto's guide to the world at large. He would best Chouji in a wrestling contest and the sumo would become his biggest supporter en route to glory. Sakura would be an unlikely addition; Naruto would accidentally destroy her shop in a battle and Ino would drag her along with them in order to make him keep his promise of replacing it once he becomes famous.

Sasuke would pursue them all relentlessly; Naruto would best him in combat by a hair's width and Sasuke would never forgive him for it. Sakura would draw him into the group and somewhere along the way, he'd become too comfortable with them to care about his defeat anymore.

Lee would not join them, but Naruto would break him of his drinking all the same. He would depart with the solemn vow to meet them again someday, but none of them would ever see him after that. TenTen would join for her own protection, and because Naruto, Sasuke, Shikamaru, Ino and Kiba need a weapons maker and she's the best there is.

The Hyuugas would be the last, and the most difficult. Naruto would somehow win the heart of the eldest princess, Hinata, but her older brother, Neji, would try to strike him down to defend her honor and her pre-arranged marriage to someone else. In the end, Naruto would defeat him, then best the Daimyo himself, marry the princess and finally take over.

In hindsight, maybe the world wouldn't be so different after all?  
**14**  
A little discussed but generally well known fact is that Hatake Kakashi, Maito Gai, Yuuhi Kurenai and Sarutobi Asuma are four of the five sole survivors of their respective Rookie Nines. Virtually all of Gai's classmates all have their names listed on the Cenotaph; Kakashi, Kurenai and Asuma's only Cenotaph mate is Obito. Other ninja from those years are still in service, but Genin were selected many times a year back when the lot of them were growing up and Rookie Nines didn't stay rookies for very long.

Among Gai's personal team--the Genin he trained with--are two particularly haunting names: Hyuuga Hizashi and Kajiya ShoSho.

Hizashi is obviously dead. ShoSho, however, was forced into retirement. While Gai is the instructor and the stand-in father figure for ShoSho's daughter, the two haven't spoken more than a few words for almost sixteen years. It isn't a grudge, just a matter of pure awkwardness. TenTen never asks why the two refuse to make eye contact, and when Neji is watching him at the semi-weekly Jounin gatherings, he always notices that Gai drinks for two but leaves the third glass from each of his orders completely untouched. 

Lee knows why. But neither Neji or TenTen have ever thought to ask him, and he values Gai's right to privacy and confidence too much to tell them even if they did. It is the first secret he has successfully kept from his teammates, and he isn't proud of it.   
**15**  
The night that Uzumaki Naruto was born was, coincidentally, almost the night that he died.

The only reason he is alive today--the only reason Villagers or independently acting shinobi didn't _kill him_ when he was a little boy--is because for the four years he was unable to care for himself, he had ANBU watching his every move and keeping him in good health. Even though ten assassination attempts _were_ made, they were always renegades with nothing to lose and nothing to gain. Uzuki Yuugao's first kills as an ANBU member, and Hatake Kakashi's _last_ kills as an ANBU captain, were fellow Leaf ninja.

The key reason that most people backed off was simple: Sarutobi convinced them that this boy was meant to become a weapon. He didn't believe this himself, neither did the people after a time, but Uzumaki Naruto was left alive to be Konoha's weapon.

So when he answers a question from an enemy in battle with, _"Because it's what I live for!"_ He does so without knowing that he speaks a truth that would shame almost all of Konoha if it were ever told to the children of the generation that wanted him dead.  
**16**  
Everytime Uchiha Sasuke thinks of a spiral, he has a consistent mental image of Naruto diving down out of a cloud and headbutting him with enough force to crater the ground at his feet. In this image, he always falters back with a bloody imprint of the Leaf's symbol stamped into his forehead.

He doesn't know why, but it always makes him smile. He doesn't _want_ to know why, because he's afraid that it might make him question everything he's been trying to do since the moment he tipped the picture of Team 7 face down on his dresser.   
**17**  
To date, every single shinobi who has ever learned to open the Eight Gates in Konoha has had his or her name put on the Cenotaph. It's a morbid tradition that started with Aian Aika during the first Hidden World War; she gave her life to hold back an entire Sand army and stunted Suna's progress as a Hidden Village right up until the Sandaime Kazekage took charge. The man who taught Maito Gai's sensei, Geiha Kaien, gave his own life leading the charge that avenged the Nidaime Hokage. His successor, Natsubi Iwaimaru, died trying to buy time for the Yondaime to ready Naruto for the Nine-Tails' sealing.

The only practitioners of Konoha Tekken who know how to open the Eight Gates and are not yet dead are Gai himself, and Rock Lee, who first opened the Death Gate less than a year ago. When Lee has acquired Jounin status and starts teaching his own spirited loser in the ways of the Green Beasts, Gai knows that it will be time to put his own name on the Cenotaph. He is at peace with this, or so he likes to think. He's convinced himself to look forward to it, but he can't. That's why he tries to treasure every single moment like it's his last; he knows that he's living his days by the number and he's lucky if he's not already on borrowed time as is. 

Lee, however, differs from his beloved mentor and father-figure for two reasons: He is the youngest yet to master the Gates, and he is already coming to terms with the idea that his name is going to end up on the Cenotaph.

In fact, he really _is_ looking forward to it.

Gai doesn't know this, but if he did, he would cry. He would cry for days, and no-one who knew why would blame him for it.  
**18**  
Once upon a time, the mentors of the Rookie Nine organized a baseball game to try and let their students be _kids_ for once.

Sasuke went for the blue team. Coincidentally, Ino went with him and dragged Chouji and Shikamaru with her. Sakura, not to be outdone, grabbed the two nearest males--Kiba and Shino--and followed suit. Naruto ended up the sole member of the red team because they needed an umpire; Kakashi was reading porn, Asuma was lazy and Kurenai was too worried about being biased towards her team.

Irate, Naruto used Kage Bunshin to fill his team's ranks. Then he had the gall to Henge every single one of them into 'evil' counterparts of the other team's members; Shikamaru with white hair and an apron, a _stunningly_ accurate portrayal of Chouji without fat, Ino gone bald, Sakura with her hair in an afro and both girls plus all the weight that Chouji had _lost_, Kiba turned into a rather feminine catboy and Shino made to look like a giant bug zapper with an attitude problem. Kage-Sasuke, on the other hand, was made to wear a _pink_ bodysuit.

And speak with a lisp.

A very _girly_ lisp.

Needless to say: It was _war_. And by the time it was all said and done, Naruto was the victor and everyone hated his guts just a little more for it.

They all said the ump was blind, but Hinata knew otherwise; her Byakugan was active from start to finish.  
**19**  
Jiraiya has, at varying points in time, been higher up off the ground than any other Konoha Ninja in history. To date, the record is when he fought Sarashina. Gama Bunta leapt after Sarashina's dragonfly, it flew too high to grab and Bunta tried to tongue lash it. Jiraiya, in a murderous frenzy since the start of the fight, ran up the side of Bunta's tongue until his face hit the clouds.

Then he jumped. He jumped so high that he couldn't feel any warmth and the air was so still that it felt like moving through solid rock.

When it finally _hit him_ as to how high up he had been, Jiraiya almost threw up. He spent the rest of the week bragging about it to try and keep from remembering just exactly _why_ he had gone after Sarashina in the first place.   
**20**  
When Namimaru was a boy, he was taken from his family as part of a hostage system that had been in place since the time of the Shodaime Zenpan Kage. Namimaru, in effect, became the adopted son of the Mizukage of the day, learning Suiton jutsu instead of the fire techniques that were supposed to be his birthright. In spite of an upbringing that was, by all accounts, barbaric and brutal, Namimaru grew up with a strong sense of mercy, honor and devotion to those closest to him. He was the antithesis of everything the Mizukage tried to make him.

Kenzaimaru, on the other hand, went to the Tsuchikage and learned Doton jutsu. He grew cold and jaded, with an underlying sense of idealism and an overbearing ability to break his own heart in order to achieve it. This is what enabled him to manipulate his brother into aiding Kenzaimaru and helping him to assassinate the Zenpan Kage. Because of their actions, the Shadow Nation collapsed and the world of shinobi entered into an era of unprecedented carnage that _still_ hasn't fully settled even after close to eighty or ninety years of bloodshed, death and violence.

Years later, a boy named Sasuke asked Namimaru a question: _"Why did you do it?"_

Namimaru answered with a tired smile: _"Because we, the Shodaime and I, have the spirit of fire. It consumes everything in its path, you know..."_

Sasuke frowned. Then he kicked Namimaru in the shins and replied: _"Fire destroys, but it leaves the way open for _new growth_, moron!"_

It was this declaration that ultimately lead to Sasuke becoming the Sandaime Hokage before he was old enough to drink legally.  
**21**  
Much to his chargrin, Uzumaki Naruto visits a theatre one day to find that his name and likeness apparently belong to a movie character. When asked about this by Jiraiya, he simply elbows the old man in the gut and points out that the actress playing Sakura has implants and the guy playing Sasuke looks like an 'emo-goth fag.'

Jiraiya's attention naturally peters out the moment Naruto mentions the implants.

When they actually _see_ the movie, both are privately amused and disturbed by it for different reasons: Jiraiya is amused that the girl actually _does_ have implants, but disturbed by the fact that the boy playing Naruto looks, sounds and acts more like the Yondaime. Naruto is amused that the boy playing Sasuke really _does_ look like an 'emo-goth fag.'

He's also disturbed by how _well_ the portrayal fits.

Needless to say, Jiraiya and Naruto leave the theatre and don't speak about the movie at all for weeks.  
**22**  
A funny thing is that the mission to retrieve Sasuke could--and _would_--have gone perfectly with just a few token differences.

Had Naruto stayed behind to tangle with Kidoumaru, he would've won in minutes by getting angry and overwhelming the spider-armed ninja with toads. As this happened, Shikamaru would've broken off to tangle with Ukon and Sakon, killing them simply by pinning their shadows and placing a blast slip on each of their respective faces. Kiba and Akamaru would've taken a suicidal gambit and annihilated Tayuya with a well-placed pair of Tsuuga strikes.

Kimimaro's Bloodline would prove a natural enemy to the Byakugan and Jyuuken, and in the end, it would fall to Rock Lee to save Neji for once. Together, even outmatched by the Cursed Seal's power, they would kill Kimimaro with a combination of 64 Hands, a Tekken combo and Initial Lotus into a Kaiten. Both would be hospitalized for the better part of a month, but they'd be laughing like brothers on the way to the hospital. 

Naruto would arrive just in time to catch Sasuke at the Valley of the End. Having already summoned a toad just to catch up, the battle would be decidedly different for the simple reason that it would be _Sasuke_ who would be fighting just to keep from being beaten to a pulp. Even when Bunta is finally dispelled and the two have a clash of epic proportions with their final Rasengan and Chidori collision, the mission would _still_ be a success... 

Because Gaara would calmly stand in Sasuke's way as he turned to leave, raising a hairless eyebrow and asking a simple question: _"Leaving so soon, Sasuke?"_

* * *

**Author's Note:** A few things that need explaining...

One is that the Sand Siblings/Inuzuka relation is there because in the manga, Kankurou looks _stunningly_ like Jiraiya as a boy, and Kiba and Kankurou look sorta related. And it's just freaking amusing.

Another is that ShoSho's name means here and there.

The 'emo-goth fag' thing was a one-time happening. Naruto ain't the real world and it sure isn't the Western world either. I didn't put that in as a character bash and I didn't try to Westernize Naruto; I just found it funny. The movie itself is a sorta-mention of the first Naruto movie; there _were_ moviemakers on hand for several scenes and Princess Koyuki _is_ an actress, so...

Coincidentally, Koyuki is also the Princess mentioned in the first of these snippets.

Hope you all enjoyed.

Regards,  
The _Sh33p_


	5. Together

**Foreword:** This'll probably be the last one, folks. Been fun though.

* * *

**1**  
First kills are, by their very nature, inherently destructive to both the murderer and the murdered. Shinobi don't show this quite so much as normal people; there is rarely any vomiting, crying or emotional turmoil in the aftermath. If a ninja is lucky, the most they'll have is an empty kind of introspection. 

Among the Rookie Nine and Gai's team, first kills are unusual for many reasons. They are more violent, more dramatic; the aftermaths are more intense and the effects more apparent years after the fact.

Inuzuka Kiba's first kill was among the most violent; he tore a man's throat out with nothing but his teeth. He bragged about it later on, but the truth is that he still wakes up at night with the taste of someone else's blood in his mouth. Aburame Shino's was just as brutal for the simple reason that he flooded someone's lungs with his destruction bugs and then had the distinct displeasure of watching them convulse with their last insect-choked breaths. Hyuuga Hinata's kill was, arguably, _the_ most violent and intense out of all of them; she still has nightmares and she refuses to admit there's a problem for the simple reason that she doesn't want to bother anyone with it...

Of course the truth is that she's afraid of everyone thinking she might be crazy. Kurenai, Kiba and Shino all know this, but they've come to the mutual understanding that Hinata deserves to confront her demons in private if she wants. It's only their business if she comes to them about it.

Yamanaka Ino's first kill was the most surreal for a lot of reasons, but the only one that matters is that she was _in her victim's body_ at the time. She has never forgotten the sensation of stabbing herself in the neck with a short sword, and she never will. It's part of why she prefers clothing with a high collar. Nara Shikamaru's first kill only came well after he was a Chuunin; he used the shadows to strangle a little girl on a mission. He hasn't forgiven himself for it since, but he also thinks that he and Ino's first kills were karmic retributions for the fact that they always made Chouji do the dirty work.

This is because, even now, most of InoShikaCho's kills are made with Ino and Shikamaru setting the enemy up and Chouji steamrolling them. His first kill came when he ballooned up to the size of a small house and rolled over eighteen men, women and children. He stopped eating for the better part of a week, and for many months afterward, he had a habit of scrubbing himself raw in the bathtub and bleaching his clothes solid white when doing laundry.

The first kills for Gai's team were more detached. TenTen killed her first enemy with a shower of kunai to the face at eighty yards. While it was more detached than anything else, she still remembers the effect of a six inch double-edged spike-knife driving through someone's eyesockets as being the single worst thing she's ever seen. Neji's first kill was like an ominous foreshadowing of Hinata's in a way: His first strike showed him the face of his uncle, then his father, then himself, then Hinata, Hanabi, TenTen, Gai, Lee and everyone else he had been 'close' to at the time. He killed the man by the thirty-second hit, but went for all sixty-four to 'be thorough.'

Unlike Hinata, he went to bed smiling while trying not to cry that night.

Lee's first kill is something he can't quite remember for the simple reason that he was drunk at the time. The truth is that he struck a woman across the face and tore off the front of her skull. While he can't really _remember it_ when awake, the memories do occasionally come back when he's sleeping; more so, now that he's opened the Eighth Gate. In dreams, he sees her with pink hair and green eyes, and when he wakes up screaming, it's because he honestly thinks he's just killed Sakura.

Team Seven's first kills are like individual hybrids of the other three. They can't really be pinned down in any one category.

Uchiha Sasuke's first kill comes about in a training spar with one of Orochimaru's foot soldiers. It's dark, and his enemy wears a mask so something about it is utterly impersonal, but Sasuke kills the man--at least he _thinks_ it was a man--with a Chidori through the collar and into a stone wall behind him. For a few seconds, he stands still with a corpse nailed to the wall thanks to his arm running through it, then finally pulls out to watch it slump to the floor. While it should be a momentous occasion for him, he feels nothing but a hollow in his chest and the eerie wondering about whether or not Itachi's first kill was similar to his own.

Then he remembers that Itachi made his first kill at eight years old. Sasuke's was at thirteen. Somehow, that simple realization that he held onto his humanity longer makes it all okay.

Haruno Sakura's first kill is a cross between karma, surreality and introspectiveness. She killed a boy with a blow to the chest; Tsunade's explosive fist technique. He was a few years younger than she was, couldn't have been older than twelve. He wore a blinding orange jumpsuit, had several whisker-like scars on his cheeks and short, choppy blond hair. She felt his ribcage crack and his heart explode, the fist ruptured his long and caused a spray of blood from his mouth. When he finally hit the dirt, Sakura had a new shade of red on her shirt and a new reason to get completely wasted on Tsunade's sake for a few days.

Coincidentally, she and Tsunade became closer over those three or four days than ever before, and they haven't been as close since. It is the only time that Tsunade ever completely disregarded the law--Sakura was too young to _legally_ drink--and the only that Sakura has ever actually shared her grief about anything in any _real_ detail.

Uzumaki Naruto's first kill is the latest in a long line of morbid traditions that intertwines itself with the teacher-student lineage that started when Namimaru bound Sasuke to a log. His teacher--Jiraiya, in this instance--puts himself in harm's way against a missing-nin from another Village. Naruto rushes in, draws out a kunai and leaps right over Jiraiya before plunging it into the ninja's head without even realizing it. For a solid thirty seconds after it happens, he stares into a dead man's empty eyes and sits somewhere between a sense of cold shock and the urge to cry. He lets one or two tears, but chokes back everything else.

He doesn't know it, but he and those before him--Obito, the Yondaime, Jiraiya and the Sandaime--have all done the exact same thing in the exact same way at the exact same age with the exact same kind of weapon. Privately, Jiraiya is embittered at the experience because it marks the third time he's had to take part in the tradition when it _should_ have been Kakashi's place to do it, not his own.

To date, Naruto has refused to talk about his first kill with anyone. In this way, he continues to repeat the tradition without even realizing it.  
**2**  
Another eerie repetition of history is that Gai, Kakashi, Kurenai and Asuma's own first kills were foreshadowings of their Genin's.

Gai made his first kill while drunk; he made a high kick and the bands holding his weights in place snapped. The ensuing rain of solid metal tore through a man's chest like a rain of blunt-tipped kunai, sinking inches deep into his body at eighty yards. It was a sobering experience for a lot of reasons, one being that the man looked _terribly_ similar to his father, and another being that he cried himself to sleep that night.

Kakashi's first kill was made with his father's sword at the age of six. He outflanked an older Genin in a Chuunin Exam battle, then stabbed him straight through the chest before slicing up and taking off his lower jaw. By the time the boy finished hitting the ground, Kakashi's hair and facemask were dyed red with blood. Although he didn't let anyone see him do it afterward, he spent the better part of half an hour throwing up in a restroom with the mental image of the boy's eyes--brown and full of life--burned into his thoughts.

Kurenai's first kill was considerably more brutal than one might think. She used a Genjutsu to incapacitate someone, then ended up stabbing them so many times that her knife broke and she ended up pounding her blood-drenched hand into the corpse for a full minute before her teammates dragged her away. For most of a month, people thought she had gone completely insane; only Obito and her sensei knew otherwise, and both of them talked to her every single day until she was past it all.

Asuma's first kill was the most professional out of any of them. He was buying time for his teammates on a mission and ended up fighting with a ninja who used a sword. He caught the blade on one of his dagger-knuckles, then sidestepped his way around the fellow and chopped down into the side of his neck. When it was all said and done, he stared at the body for a few seconds and shrugged before running off to join everyone else.

Coincidentally, Asuma is the only one of the four who doesn't think he ever needed any therapy. Unlike so many other people with so many other things, he actually _does_ know how right he is.  
**3**  
Morino Ibiki is considered the single grizzliest, ugliest, most sadistic man that has ever called himself a torture specialist in Konoha.

Eerily enough, Ibiki is also closer to more women than any other Jounin male in the Village. He's been romantically involved with none of them, but to various capacities, he's taught Suzume, Shizune, Kurenai, Yuugao, Anko and about two dozen others the tricks of breaking a man down and making him do whatever you want. He's only taught them how to do this to men because none seem interested in women.

His latest disciple--and his favorite by far--is Yamanaka Ino. The two have a relationship that eerily parodies family; not quite father and daughter but a little more than uncle and neice. More so than Asuma, Ibiki has become Ino's mentor in the arts of torture and interrogation. What she lacks in brutality, he has helped her compensate for in sheer finesse. As far as his students go, she is an absolute _prodigy_, and perhaps even more efficient at breaking people down--men _and_ women--than Ibiki himself.

That she does her work without having to resort to physical torture is simply an added bonus. For all of her skill at getting information, Ino has never once had to resort to crude methods like screwdrivers or seduction. Ibiki likes to tell people that she does this because she prefers leaving people intact to get more information out of them later.

The truth is that she just doesn't want to break a nail.

Considering her effectiveness, Ibiki doesn't mind the eccentricity.  
**4**  
Another of those morbid traditions that nobody really knows what to make sense of is the Dead Kage Clause, so named the last time that Gaara and Tsunade held a conversation.

The clause holds that every Kage of every Village must try like all Hell to have a more dramatic, meaningful and epic death than whoever came beforehand.

Tsunade thinks that it was one of the only times Gaara ever cracked a joke. She's wrong.

He was never joking at all.  
**5**  
Something even more unknown than all of these traditions is a very simple fact about Gaara. So unknown is this fact that even his siblings don't have any idea about it. In fact, the only one who _does_ know is Uzumaki Naruto, and he had to guess just to figure it out. When he _did_, he laughed for three days straight everytime he thought about it.

You see, Gaara is a breast man.

Coincidentally, this is why relations are so good between Konoha and Suna. Every time Gaara and Tsunade negotiate something, he just ends up going 'Yes' whenever there's a lull in speech.

To Gaara's credit and continued good health, Tsunade _still_ hasn't figured this out.  
**6**  
Yuuhi Kurenai's eyes actually _are_ derived from the Sharingan, though no-one really knows it. One of her great-great grandmothers was a bar girl who had a one night stand with an Uchiha man. He lacked the Sharingan, himself, but he still had the genes for it and those carried through. That Kurenai's mother and father were both ninjas caused her watered down psuedo-Sharingan to activate before she was even born. It manifests as a circle of pitch black about halfway between her pupils and the whites of her eyes; a blatant interruption in the otherwise crimson irises for which her parents named her.

Kurenai's would-be Sharingan, however, is permanently stunted. It can evolve no further, but it has helped her in ways she'll never be able to really wrap her mind around. This is chiefly because it's an invaluable tool in boosting her Genjutsu. There is another reason, though...

It makes her look more like Hyuuga Hinata's birthmother. **  
7  
**Something that few people know is that Jiraiya is _not_ the only artist or writer amongst the Legendary Sannin.

To date, Orochimaru has penned several dozen novels using two aliases. One, the name Akadou Kazuya, has spawned three different series of horror stories that've won rave reviews across the continent and simultaneously driven eight people to suicide by giving them nightmares. The other, Tsurugi Yashagoro, has been hailed in much the same way for producing some of the best children's literature ever written. He uses the money to help fund the very _existence_ of the Hidden Sound.

Tsunade, on the other hand, has the untapped potential of a master artist. Her only real work--the _only_ picture she has ever drawn and attached any personal meaning to--is a rolled up black-and-white sketch done from memory. It is of a young man with white hair, sitting atop a wall and looking down at the viewer with a subtle expression of anger and sadness; a longing that has never, and likely never will be put into words. Beyond that, her art consists of doodles on unsigned paperwork.

Jiraiya is the most prolific of the three, but here, in the realm of art and writing, he is also the master. He has written and published enough pornography to buy a small country, and while he keeps the money from that, he has a good many other aliases as well. One, his personal favorite, is used to publish a series of manga centered around the life and times of ninjas. The characters are all amalgams of people he's actually come to know over the course of his career, but the stories usually have happy endings and there are no little boys and girls with their faces down in the mud. Likewise, there aren't any princesses with their eyes locked to the past and their hearts sealed shut.

He donates all the proceeds to a charity in Konoha used to pay for the upbringings, educations and medical costs of orphans.  
**8**  
Coincidentally, Yakushi Kabuto is the only man alive who knows that Orochimaru's favorite works are his children's stories. Similarly, Shizune is the only woman alive who knows about Tsunade's one sketch, let alone the identity of the man portrayed within.

Where Tsunade has kept that one sketch and never produced anything of its caliber since, Jiraiya once inked a picture of a tragically beautiful blonde woman bathed in moonlight. When he was done, he spent a few minutes looking it over and thinking, then burned it along with a letter he never read. To date, it's the only artwork he's ever intentionally destroyed.  
**9**  
A little known but highly amusing fact is that Temari's first relationship with a Leaf-nin was _not_ Nara Shikamaru.

It was Rock Lee.

TenTen, Neji, Sakura, Shikamaru and Kankurou _still_ don't know what to make of it. Gai actually cried tears of joy and _hugged_ Kakashi, while Gaara and Baki...

Well, Baki just stared and tilted his head. He tried talking, but the only thing he could do was mouth breathe like a fish while trying to find words.

Gaara?

He laughed for twenty minutes straight. It was the first time anyone ever actually saw him smile without murder in his eyes.  
**10**  
In _some_ lifetime--maybe this one, maybe another--Yakushi Kabuto is less a riddle and more a truth so obvious that people simply refuse to believe or accept it.

In that life, he is a member of the Akatsuki. A jinchuuriki; holder of the Nekomata. He is obsessed with Death, more so than his master will ever be. He doesn't want to _escape_ Death, he wants to _control it_. So he experiments; he plays games with Death. He learns ways of keeping a body preserved indefinitely, and learns even _more_ ways to keep it technically alive for months after it's actually died. He conquers the art of regenerating from lethal wounds to an extent that it would make Tsunade rage with envy, and he learns how to animate corpses as if they were still alive and breathing. Sometimes, he can even bring the personalities back when he's animating them.

They never like it. But he doesn't care, because his time is limited and he knows it.

After all, he _is_ an Akatsuki in that life. A willing member; one of the nine ringbearers. When it comes time, he will gladly lay down and allow them to rip the Nekomata from his body. He will do so because he _craves_ control over Death, and nothing grants control more than _meaning_. Likewise, nothing gives meaning more than sacrifice. In Kabuto's eyes, the Akatsuki are not power-craving renegades. They are humanity's saviors; sealing away the bijuu one by one. It doesn't matter if they don't understand this. It doesn't even matter if they don't _mean_ this.

It's what they are to him.

Death and sacrifice are why Yakushi Kabuto goes to his grave.

Unfortunately, one can never be sure if _that_ life is _this_ life, so it's really all speculation at this point...

Right?  
**11**  
The last day before Naruto left Konoha, the remaining members of the Rookie Nine and Gai's team, plus Iruka, gathered together and threw him a party. For a lot of reasons, they decided to make it not just a going away party, but a _birthday_ party as well.

It's the only time that Naruto has ever actually cried in full view of all of his friends. As much as some of them wanted to rib him for it, none of them said a word.  
**12**  
The relationship between Rock Lee and Temari is one of those things that makes almost no sense to other people. In truth, it doesn't make much sense to either of them either.

It lasted for only the better part of half a year, and even then it didn't leave the kind of long lasting after-effects of the relationship held by Kankurou and TenTen. Neither Lee or Temari are really sure how it happened either, but it was fun while it lasted at any rate. When asked, each one will give a different answer.

Temari will say: _"I wanted to see what was under the spandex." _

Lee will say: _"I was tempted from the beautiful path of the falling cherry-blossoms by an equally beautiful desert flower, possessed of a strong, glorious wind that carried the most fragrant scents ever to bless my nose!" _

... And then he'll spend the next three hours ranting out a mental comparison between Temari and Sakura. It's obvious that he now prefers the unattainable to what he once had, but he still regards Temari in a way that he can't _quite_ put into words, no matter how hard he tries(and, God help a lot of people, _he tries_).

The truth is actually something that neither will really admit to themselves, thus they can't tell anyone else either. Temari was drawn to Lee initially because he was the first person in her own age group to actually _stand up_ to Gaara and come back alive. Naruto may have broken Gaara's armor completely, but Lee was the first one to put cracks in it. Lee was drawn to Temari, initially, because she actually acknowledged him. After a time, she became taken with his chivalry and the fact that he more or less worshipped the ground she walked on. Lee, in turn, continued to gain that acknowledgement he so craved. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to keep a relationship going.

As of the present, the two aren't the best of friends, but they remain close, and they remain fond of each other in a way that most people can't quite get their heads around.  
**13**  
Things could have gone differently, but the end result would still be much the same.

In the Chuunin Exams, all it would have taken for Gaara to win would be to remain calm when the Chidori struck him. If that had happened, he would have molded the sand around Sasuke's arm and broken it before knocking him out with a kick to the chin. Seeing that the two jinchuuriki were going to fight, Orochimaru would decide to kill two birds with one stone; a signal to Kabuto and the attack would meet a delay.

Later, after Shino was beaten by Temari, Naruto and Gaara would do battle. At first, it would be surprisingly even. Gaara's injured arm would keep him somewhat incapacitated, but the sand would hold Naruto back indefinitely. Eventually, Orochimaru would tire of watching and Kabuto would finally cast his Genjutsu. With timing on his side, Naruto would end up unleashing a massive wave of chakra in time to block its effects on him, and with both Gaara and Naruto more or less ignoring everything around them; war would begin.

But they would keep fighting. And somewhere in the midst of it all, the transformation would begin. Sasuke would try to help, but he'd end up face down on the ground. Sakura would try to shield him, but she would also end up locked to a wall. Surrounded by unconscious civilians and fellow shinobi, Naruto would put his life on the line against Gaara and successfully take him out of the arena with a bit of help from Shino. Somewhere along the way, Shikamaru and Chouji would intervene; shadows locking Gaara to the ground, a colossal fist slamming down with the force of a kiloton bomb. That would be the trigger for Shukaku's true release, and once that happened, the only one left standing near Gaara would be Naruto himself.

War would rage, Gama Bunta would come out and somehow, even in the middle of Konoha, the two would keep fighting. Around them, _everyone_ would stop to watch, with only Orochimaru, Sarutobi, Jiraiya and a few others managing to stay focused on their own trials and tribulations. In spite of the epic scale of combat, Naruto's sheer _grit_ would keep casualties to a minimum, and as he's perched atop Gama Bunta's head, he'd be able to _hear_ the ANBU tearing down anyone trying to attack him.

Eventually, this too would end. Shukaku would fall to a blazing headbutt and Gaara would finally collapse from a flying right hook; the culmination of everything they'd fought for. The witnesses to this would be many, but the only ones that would matter are Sarutobi and Orochimaru.

Orochimaru would scream in rage because he would get to _watch_ as his plans--_all of them_--crumble down around him.

The Sandaime, however, would not die smiling.

He'd die _laughing_.  
**14**  
During the time that Lee and Temari were dating, Lee actually grew his hair back out and started dressing like a normal human being again. While Gai wasn't quite sure what to make of the change, everyone else saw it as a marked improvement.

Coincidentally, this was also the time that about half the teenaged kunoichi in Konoha--including Ino and Sakura--started stalking him. While Lee remained faithful, the whole ordeal was enough that when they finally _did_ break up, the first thing he did was to find a bowl, a kunai and a new spandex suit.

He hasn't had to deal with mobbing fangirls since, and _Neji_ couldn't be happier. He was starting to miss the weekly marriage proposals from girls he doesn't know.  
**15**  
Oddly enough, Hyuuga Hinata has defeated her older cousin, Neji, twice in a row. Once, she fought him a few days after returning from the Exam where she made Chuunin. It was a sparring match, and she spent the entire fight outgunned. Her father almost called it off twice because, _surely_, there was no way for his timid older daughter to best the Hyuuga Clan's prodigal son. The only reason he didn't was the murderous looks that Neji, Kiba, Shino _and_ Hanabi gave him whenever he even started to raise his hand. It wasn't intimidation, just a lack of desire for trouble.

In an upset, Hinata defeated Neji with nothing but the basics: A well-timed Bunshin and an even better timed Jyuuken strike to the throat. She ran in synch behind the Bunshin and allowed it to take a Kaiten head-on, then struck him as he finished the technique. It had the effect of temporarily disabling his nervous system from the neck down.

Lee has _yet_ to let Neji live it down.

For her part, Hinata likes to think that this is the first time she ever beat Neji.

The truth, however, is that she utterly decimated him in their first Chuunin Exam. It didn't matter who lost the most blood; Neji went into that fight without a chance, and while Hinata didn't strike the finishing blow, her words broke his will so thoroughly that _he_ didn't even realize it until he felt Uzumaki Naruto's fist break his jaw.  
**16**  
A little realized fact is that the loudest three of the Rookie Nine--Kiba, Ino and Naruto--are actually the purest ninja that Konoha has produced in the past ten years.

Ino, while flighty and unprofessional when off-duty, is the epitome of what kunoichi are supposed to be when she goes to work. As an interrogator, she is ruthless, psychological, delicate as a flower and brutal as her boarish namesake. As a fighter, she is strategic and deceptive; where Sakura relies on power, Hinata is a Taijutsu specialist and TenTen can impale a fly on a needle from a quarter of a mile, Ino outwits her opponents and lures them into one trap after another in ways that often make Shikamaru twitch with suppressed envy. As a spy, her ability to swap bodies is invaluable, and when that fails: She actually _can_ be seductive. Alarmingly so.

Kiba, although loud, seemingly arrogant and a little stupid when it comes to the size of his dog, is a master of himself in battle. Even when outsmarted, outgunned and without a chance, he is willing to continue fighting for the sake of the mission and for the sake of his comrades. He has no special powers; no great demon and no awe inspiring Bloodline, but he knows his limits and he knows when, how and where he should push them. He makes it a point to understand the strengths and weaknesses of his teammates, and while Shino is smarter and arguably _better_, Kiba is always the go-to guy in any confrontation.

Naruto, although louder than Kiba and arguably more foolish in public, is at _home_ in battle. He is a master of stealth and the sneak attack; a trickster demon in the flesh. _Literally_, according to some. His strategies rarely extend beyond his next two or three moves, but he creates them on the spot and that makes him unpredictable. He stands alone, but he does it well, and even more so than Kiba, he embodies a spirit that refuses to break and a will to keep fighting even when common sense says he should be running until his legs break.

So when the three of them are _finally_ put together on a single mission, half of their comrades aren't sure whether they'll come back alive. The other half just isn't sure whether or not there'll be anything _left_ to come back from when they're done.  
**17**  
Once upon a time, Hatake Kakashi became a Missing-nin. It lasted for approximately two weeks, and while he was ultimately cleared and allowed to return, the stain on his reputation is the original reason he left the ANBU.

It all happened as the result of a mission into the Hidden Stone; a bodyguard job gone wrong. It went wrong because, at first, it went _right_. He and his team killed a real Missing-nin from Konoha, took out a local rebellion in the Hidden Stone's ranks and kept the peace. As a show of good will and gratitude, their client, Shogun Jintoku Atarumaru, decided to let them stay a while in his palace. When Konoha tried to recall them anyway, the Shogun threatened war. So Kakashi and his team stayed.

One by one, the team splintered due to Atarumaru's paranoid hospitality. Eventually, Kakashi found himself alone, wandering the halls with his sword on his back, hands in his pockets and eyes shifting from side to side. He arrived at an unguarded, unmarked door in one of the sub-levels of the palace, noted the lack of guards and--against his better judgement--let himself in.

What he saw in there defies description. To this day, Kakashi has only spoken of it once, and only when the Third Hokage directly ordered him to give reason for his actions. He has nightmares about the things--the _people_--in that room, and what had been done to them and with them and by them. It's one of the only times he's ever broken Shinobi Rule Number 25, and most of his former teammates, like Uzuki Yuugao and the man codenamed Yamato, will tell you that he hasn't been the same since.

To put it bluntly: Kakashi murdered Atarumaru in cold blood through the use of the Headhunter technique and the blunted side of his sword. Then, trailing Atarumaru's blood, he went outside the palace and just _left_.

It took three days for anyone in the palace to figure out what had happened. By then, Kakashi's former team was long gone, and Kakashi himself was lost somewhere in the wilds between the Stone and Fire countries. When he finally showed back up, two weeks after what he had done, he had burned his ANBU uniform and broken his porcelain dog mask to a fine powder, but he still wore his Konoha forehead protector.

He was also smiling in a manner that his future Genin team would become _very_ well accustomed to.

Thankfully for everyone involved, the Hidden Stone was _conveniently_ able to pin it on the very ninjas that Kakashi's team had slaughtered, thereby removing the blame from Konoha. It wasn't for lack of evidence, just lack of effort.

Coincidentally, this is the real reason that Kakashi tried to forge such a close bond with Uchiha Sasuke. They weren't the same type because they were geniuses with the Sharingan; Kakashi _knew_ Sasuke was going to leave one day. He was trying to make it so that the boy would leave for the _right reasons _and still be able to come back without the entire Village at his throat.

It was his most magnificent failure yet.  
**18**  
Among Konoha's Jounin mentors, Hyuuga Neji is unique in that two out of his three Genin possess Bloodlines. One is his own cousin, placed under his care at the personal request of Hyuuga Hiashi. The other is a boy named Akado Saiten, the current heir-apparent to the ever-dwindling Akado clan. This puts his team in the unusual position of having only one member without a Bloodline. Coincidentally, this member also lacks a clan because he comes from a mostly civilian family that hasn't put out a ninja since his great-grandfather.

Saiten is an oddity to be sure; Neji still isn't quite sure how to handle him, but the Akado's chakra leeching lends itself well to a very bastardized form of Jyuuken. Since the martial art itself isn't unique to the Hyuuga, Neji teaches him the basics and doesn't really object when the boy starts ripping off the occasional technique and warping it to his clan's unique talents. He follows orders well, and truth be told, Neji favors him over the other two because he isn't a walking disaster waiting to happen.

Hanabi is even stranger still, for the simple reason that she's lived her entire life with Neji under her control, rather than it being the other way around. Teaching her is like teaching a slightly less talented, incredibly more tempermental female version of himself, and it gives Neji the perspective needed to walk up to Gai one night and, in full view of every other Jounin at the steakhouse, ask him: _"How in the hell did you put up with me?"_

The last of his team--the one without a Bloodline--is probably the weirdest out of all of them. When Neji looks at Inkaten Takeshi, he literally _does not know_ what to make of him. The boy reminds him of what would happen if you threw Naruto into a blender with Rock Lee's work ethic, TenTen's love of all things sharp and pointy--not to mention the ability to _make_ them--and a typical kunoichi's housemaking abilities. He doesn't speak of his family life, constantly harrasses other Jounin and Chuunin for help--particularly Ebisu and Gai, much to Neji's chargrin--and seems to have an inexplicable rivalry with a boy named Udon caused by the fact that both of them wear glasses and happen to bear a vague resemblance to each other.

When it comes time for the Chuunin Exams, Neji is hesitant to enter them for the simple reason that they are _not_ a true team. Saiten and Hanabi work reasonably well together; Takeshi is a walking trainwreck.

He enters them anyway, because Takeshi threatens to murder him in his sleep otherwise and neither Saiten or Hanabi so much as sigh in disagreement about this idea. When it's all said and done, Neji is still unsure of what to make of his team.

_Takeshi_ gets them through the written exams, though Saiten does well and Hanabi ends up failing miserably. In the Forest of Death, Hanabi--the one raised in _perfect_ splendor--is the one who gets them through, even though the team almost fractures three times in a row. Saiten falls spectacularly in the preliminaries and both Takeshi and Hanabi make it to the finals.

There, Takeshi fights with Udon, and while no-one has ever actually prepared him for a contest of Genjutsu, Neji is shocked to find the brat surviving and battling to a draw on nothing but stubborn _egomania_. Somewhere in between being stabbed and beaten to a pulp, Takeshi breaks through Udon's illusions and throws a hundred pound kunai into his plans, then returns the beating before passing out on his feet. Since Udon has his arms and ribs broken in the exchange, it ends up as a draw.

Hanabi's fight speaks for itself. Neji relishes that one for the simple reason that he got to see his uncle cry like a little girl.

When it finally comes time for his Genin to have another mission, Neji decides to come early. To his surprise, he finds all three of them waiting there; Takeshi is smug but quiet, Saiten is giddy with anticipation and Hanabi is staring up at the morning sky without a word.

For a while, Neji just stands there watching them, and somewhere between this and trying to find the will to move up and greet his students, he comes to the realization that they're not egocentric children anymore. When he looks at them now, in this very instant, he isn't seeing parodies his team and the former Rookie Nine.

He's seeing a trio of soldiers. Fellow shinobi.

All of the sudden, Neji _is_ sure how to deal with them, but he _isn't_ sure if he really likes it at all.  
**19**  
One day, Uzumaki Naruto is going to face a test. Like so many others, it's going to be him against an opponent he has no business trying to defeat, with the life of a precious person hanging in the balance. If he's lucky, he's going to have an audience; people to stand there with the knowledge that all they can do is cheer him on as he goes up against the odds one more time with everything to lose and even more to gain.

The precious person will be a fellow Jinchuuriki. Maybe he'll know him or her, maybe he won't. Maybe they'll be friends, or acquaintances, or even enemies forced into a battlefield truce. Regardless, it will fall to Naruto to do the fighting, because his fellow--his _family_--is unable to do so.

So he's going to stand tall. He's going to wipe the blood from around his mouth, and grin that bastard fox grin that used to privately drive Sasuke insane. Then he's going to draw out every trick, every technique and every weapon he's got, turn the world yellow then red, fill the area with his likeness and leave a trail of blood--only some of it belonging to his enemy--wherever he goes.

Somewhere along the line though, Naruto is going to notice something.

He doesn't know who his enemy is. He can't tell if it's Itachi, Kisame, Zetsu, Deidara or someone else.

He's no longer going to be able to tell the difference. All he's going to see is that god forsaken red-and-black coat. All he's going to know is that he has to win at any cost to himself. All he's going to want is to tear out his foe's still beating heart, hold it up for them to see and then squeeze it until it bursts like a puss filled tomato between his fingers.

It's at this moment that he realizes--truly _realizes_--some of the maddening rage that must have been driving Sasuke as he walked out on the Leaf.

In this moment, Naruto also comes to another epiphany: He's not Sasuke.

He never has been and he never will be.

In that instant, Naruto stops seeing the coat and starts seeing the face of his enemy. Not long after that, there's more blood on the ground, and the Akatsuki's number falls to eight.  
**20**  
Recently, Shizune and Anko found themselves locked in a broom closet for the better part of twelve and a half hours. Since both were without chakra, this left them unable to do anything but sit there and talk.

As a result, when the two finally came back out, they were actually friends.

This incident had two direct, but obscure, causes. One is that Sarutobi Asuma, who routinely associates with Yuuhi Kurenai, who knows _both_ kunoichi to varying degrees, is a very observant man. The other is that Hyuuga Neji happens to owe him a few favors due to a certain incident involving the Hyuuga prodigy making a drunken admission about the Byakugan and the women's locker room.

Because of this, Neji struck both women with 64 Hands, cutting off their tenketsu. Asuma then nonchalantly chucked them into a closet and Ibiki, ever intent on studying the workings of the human psyche, braced the door by sitting against it as the three of them played cards. Somewhere along the way, Shizune and Anko started fighting back in the only way they really could: They faked moaning and talked dirty.

Because of this, Ibiki got a front row seat to Asuma actually gawking enough for his cigarette to fall out and almost set his crotch on fire, while Neji just sat there and twitched, _visibly_ fighting the activation of the Byakugan.

It was the first time in fifteen years that anyone had ever actually heard Morino Ibiki laughing. The experience was so traumatic that Neji and Asuma _still_ refuse to speak about it.  
**21**  
The mission shared by Naruto, Ino and Kiba is one that most people can't quite get their heads around. The three of them were tasked with collapsing an entire government in on itself over the course of one week, and while Tsunade has never told anyone _why_, they were to do this _completely_ without back-up.

Ino became the frontrunner for the group. Kiba was their advisor, Naruto was their one-man infantry platoon. They successfully infiltrated the nation through a backwoods route discovered by Kiba and Akamaru; Ino diffused several near-disasters with locals and Naruto killed three enemy Chuunin without dirtying the clothes or damaging their appearances. The trio then transformed _into_ these Chuunin, with Akamaru somehow becoming a Zabuza-styled sword for one of them, and continued the rest of the way unmolested right into the capitol.

Normally, ninja are supposed to favor stealth. In this case, all three of them decided to cause as much havoc as (in)humanly possible.

Naruto became a nine-hundred man mob and started a riot in the street. For every clone the police killed, he simply made another and killed two officers in kind. When the local military tried to join in, Kiba and Akamaru neutralized them with smoke bombs and a rather _horrific_ set of Tsuuga strikes. They simply repeated as necessary when it came to local shinobi who were trying to keep things under control.

Ino, along with a contingent of five Naruto's, was the one who successfully toppled the government. With her bodyguard of hollow men, she bodyswapped with one guard after another, until she finally _became_ the very man they were guarding. Then, in full view of a hundred high-ranking officials, she had him scream, _"THE END HAS COME!"_ and commit seppukku. Even as the knife tore his stomach open, one of the Naruto's hidden in the crowd, covered himself with blast notes from all _five_ of them and went up in a fireball visible from half a mile away.

By the time the three finally left the city, Naruto was being carried by his own Kage Bunshin, Ino had a massive headache and _Akamaru_ was piggybacking on a rather exhausted Kiba. The pack spent the next few days camping out under the stars on their way home, but when they finally arrived, they were treating each other as if they had been brothers and a sister all their lives.

Quite frankly, this scared the shit out of a lot of people for a lot of reasons. In spite of their success, the trio hasn't been put together since.  
**22**  
In another life, Uchiha Sasuke's dreams are shattered, but his name still makes it onto the Cenotaph.

In that life, his desires for revenge are taken away. It isn't Naruto who does it, nor is it a magnificent fellow genius like Neji. No, in that life it is lowly Rock Lee, who drives himself straight into Death's vengeful embrace with the Eighth Gate. In their battle, right before Sasuke's very eyes, Lee does all the things that he himself wanted to do to Itachi; he shatters Tsukiyomi on willpower alone. He outflanks Amaterasu and he breaks Susano without even trying. He puts _fear_ into Itachi's Sharingan, and then he breaks it forever by driving him head-first into the ground with enough force that Sasuke--and Neji beside him--are both thrown twenty feet through the air.

In that life, Sasuke snaps. His vow of revenge can't even be carried over to the one who stole it from him, because Itachi's killer dies on the spot in front of him. He no longer cares for reviving his clan because he never thought that far ahead; _he never thought about life after Itachi_. So he decides, in a way that seems entirely too logical at that moment in time, that it must be Naruto's fault. Because Naruto didn't stop him from leaving the Village and that means it just _has to be that yellow-headed idiot's fault_.

So he tracks Naruto down, right as the youth arrives in Konoha. They fight. They fight and they fight and they _keep_ fighting, until Naruto is regrowing from holes in his chest, Genjutsu has made Sakura a traitor and Sasuke himself has gone so far past redemption that even _he_ realizes it.

Then, as he's about to put a glowing blue hand through both of his former teammates, Naruto's red eyes turn blue. That freakish orange chakra vanishes, he ducks down in front of Sakura and throws her out the way, leaps forward and takes the Chidori right through his body as if it were his only option. Sasuke sees this in advance with the Sharingan; he _knows_ what's about to happen and even as he's about to kill his once best friend, he can't figure out why Naruto is so willingly throwing his life away.

Then, when the two are so close that their forehead protectors are touching, Naruto smiles at him. It's a bloody kind of smile; like what he must have had when he mocked Hyuuga Neji. Then he speaks, and Sasuke is enlightened.

_"Your eyes can't see what I'm about to do when my hands are behind you, huh?" _

Sasuke leaps back, but it's too late. Blast notes tear his arms off at the shoulders, he's left screaming and suddenly...

Suddenly, none of it matters anymore.

His world goes blank. When he opens his eyes, Naruto is standing there with his back to him, somehow magnificent even when his clothes are completely reddened with his own blood. Sakura is crouching over him, her eyes somewhere between hate and love and pure logic that's compelling both to the point that all she can let herself do is cry while cutting off the bleeding from his arms.

They're being attacked. Sound-nins; what's left of Orochimaru's vanguard.

So Sasuke gets up. He gets up with tears in his eyes, without help, and speaks.

_"Someone give me a kunai." _

Naruto looks back at him. It's an expression that Sasuke thinks he's seen on the blond's face before, but there aren't any words spoken by him. The idiot tosses a kunai, and Sasuke catches it in his teeth.

A few seconds later, he's running towards redemption like there's a horde of angry demons at his heels. By the time he finishes his work, he's standing alone on the old bridge. His body is a tapestry of shinobi weaponry; swords, spears, kunai, shuriken, needles and everything in between. He's bled so much that the wounds have stopped running, and even though it's still raining furiously, he can feel a glimmer of sun and warmth from the blade still gripped in his teeth.

He finally drops it as he stumbles onto the center of the bridge. Then he looks up and smiles before gravity and mortality lay claim to him.

A day later, Naruto personally carves the last Uchiha's name into the Cenotaph. He does so without his forehead protector, because Sasuke needed a new one for his funeral and Naruto needed a replacement anyway.

* * *

**Author's Note:** And here I don't even like Sasuke o.o; 

That said: Atarumaru's full name is a play on Saddam Hussein: It can be construed to mean one who confronts(Saddam) and beauty or goodness(Hussein). Use your own imagination with that knowledge, if you want to know what it is that made Kakashi do what he did.

The Gaara-likes-boobs thing is an homage of sorts to an old joke on the NarutoFan forums. Someone had an avatar of him 'groping' the air and going "Booby? BOOBY?", or something to that effect.

And yes, if you haven't figured it out: I have a lot of fun picking on the geniuses and making human beings out of them.

I might continue this, but don't bank on it. I'd like this to be the end, unless the Naruto cast itself stabs me in my dreams or something. Kudos, folks. Been a blast.

The _Sh33p_


End file.
